


i will always love you

by nadin



Category: Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Present day setting, The Bodyguard (1992) AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-13 15:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20176372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadin/pseuds/nadin
Summary: WonderTrev love week 2019Day 6 - AUSteve Trevor stared at her. And stared at her. And then stared at her some more.The photographs of him she had seen didn’t do any justice to the colour of his eyes, Diana noted absently as she studied him right back. Or the vivid life she could see in them.When a singer and a songwriter Steve Trevor starts receiving creepy messages from an obsessed stalker, his manager hires Diana Prince as Steve’s personal bodyguard to keep him safe.The Bodyguard (1992) AU, with a twist of magic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here comes another AU no one asked for :) I've had the absolute best fun writing this one and I hope with all my heart you'll like it as well! 
> 
> Basically, I combined Wonder Woman (2017) with The Bodyguard (1992), using quite a bit of plot and dialogue lines from both films and shamelessly tossing aside the stuff I didn't like. Diana is still Wonder Woman, except instead of being an Arts Curator, she's dubbing as a security expert and a personal bodyguard in her time free from saving the world. 
> 
> (I did my best to include as much WW characters as I could. However, I didn't have a role for adult Charlie, but it felt wrong to just toss him out altogether so I made him Etta's son and I regret nothing.) 
> 
> Once again, a huge thank you to my beta and an overall wonderful human ** akajb **!

“No.”

“Diana,” Chief started, ignoring the note of finality in her voice.

Diana held up her hand. “Don’t.” She stood up and picked up their empty glasses, carrying them to the sink. “You know I don’t work with celebrities, Napi.”

Behind her, she heard the legs of Chief’s chair scrape against the tiled floor as he got to his feet as well. “He is not just a celebrity.”

She paused, amused, and turned around. “What is he, then?”

Chief’s lips quirked. “A public figure?” he offered, not sounding very convinced.

Diana laughed. She leaned against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. “You mean a celebrity?” she clarified, an eyebrow arched.

For a moment, he just stood there, in the middle of her kitchen, watching her. And like many times before, she got the distinct feeling that he could see straight into her soul. It never failed to unnerve her in a way that she couldn’t quite define even to herself.

Diana watched him back, taking in his calm, composed expression, his no-nonsense clothes and his long hair slicked back and tied into a ponytail at the nape of his neck with a leather string. For the thousandth time, she wondered what was hiding behind his steady demeanour, knowing full well that while he would never lie to her if she asked, he wouldn’t tell her the whole truth, either. So she didn’t.

Whatever it was that had brought him here today, it had to be serious. And because a pop musician, of all people, was involved, Chief’s reasoning intrigued her greatly. There weren’t many individuals in this world who would cross the boundaries Diana had created for herself, and the fact that he had taken that chance unsettled her more than she was willing to let on.

“Just this once,” Chief said.

“Why me? Surely there is someone willing to take on that task.”

“Because you are the best,” he replied simply and without hesitation. 

Diana’s smile dimmed. “There is no such thing as _the best_, you know that better than I do.”

“I trust you more than anyone else I know,” he admitted honestly, and she felt her shoulders sag. “You know, I do, Diana. I trust Wonder Woman.”

She was shaking her head. “It’s not a good idea.”

“One meeting,” Chief asked. “I’m not asking you to commit to anything or to throw yourself into gunfire for him. I’m asking you to meet him.”

“I would have preferred gunfire,” Diana muttered under her breath, rubbing her forehead, her resolve crumbling.

She was frustrated with his persistence, and even more so with giving in to it. With knowing that Chief’s appearance on her doorstep all these years after the last time their paths had crossed would leave her curious enough to bend her own rules.

If nothing else, she owed him that much.

Chief grinned, as if reading her thoughts. “How about lunchtime tomorrow? I’ll explain everything.”

She regarded him darkly.

“One meeting,” she repeated emphatically.

His features softened, although she still spotted a spark of humour behind his eyes.

“I’ll send a car.”

“No need,” she said flatly. “I’ll drive. That way I’ll be able to leave whenever I want.”

\---

Diana knew Steve Trevor.

Well, she knew _of_ him. Everyone who hadn’t spent the past seven years living in a bunker did, she suspected. 

A rising star, a songwriter and a singer, he appeared to be big enough to stay on the charts but not to grace the front page of every existing tabloid. 

Sitting in her home office that afternoon, after Chief had left - although not before making her promise him that she was not going to try and find a reason to cancel on him - Diana scrolled through several articles, not quite sure what she was looking for. It was hard to get the feel of someone that way, and she didn’t know why she even bothered. 

She should have called Chief and told him no, Diana thought, rubbing the corners of her eyes. She should have done that from the start, a small voice in the back of her mind told her, making her frown deepen. She knew better than this, and yet…

It still felt like a bad idea the next day when Diana pulled up to a house she wouldn’t have thought belonged to someone famous, located in one of the suburbs ten minutes from downtown Boston.

She parked at the curb and peered at it through the windshield, taking in its solid build and the lush greenery around it, thriving still even in late October. Not too late to turn back, she told herself. Tell Chief that something else had come up. Gods knew there was no shortage of trouble in this world to keep her busy. He wouldn’t believe her, but he would understand.

Tempting.

Diana sighed and pushed the door open, climbing out of the car. She was not a liar, and Chief would see right through her deceit, and she didn’t want to look in his eyes with shame in the future.

The front door got yanked open two seconds after she rang the bell and a pair of inquisitive eyes peered out at her from under a mop of unruly red hair.

“You are not Steve Trevor,” Diana said.

“Nope,” a boy of about six responded, studying her curiously. “And you’re not a pizza guy… uh, lady.”

Her lips quirked. “I don’t think so.”

Was this the wrong address? She was certain she’d got that right—

“Mom!” the boy yelled over his shoulder, and then he disappeared in the house, leaving Diana standing at the door alone.

She peeked inside, catching the faint sound of music floating from the depths of the house. A tune too soft for her to place in her mind. There was a stack of mail on the table by the door and a potted plant in the corner and a set of stairs leading to the second floor right in front of her.

Diana stepped back and checked the number nailed to the wall outside. She was about to pull out her phone and call Chief when he appeared in the hallway.

“Diana.”

His face lit up as he walked towards her.

“You never told me he had a child,” she said, stepping inside.

The address was correct, it seemed.

“He doesn’t.” Chief drew her into a quick hug. “I’m glad you made it.”

“We had a deal,” Diana reminded him, smiling.

He nodded and closed the door. “Come with me.”

She followed him down the hall, past the framed posters on the walls and an empty living room with French doors leading out to the backyard, towards the music that kept growing louder. Chief paused before the last door and rapped his knuckles on it a few times. He pushed it open without waiting for a response. 

“Steve?” he called.

The room turned out to be a home studio, if the recording equipment and soundproof walls were any indication. More framed posters on the walls, speakers in each corner and cords snaking along the floor.

There was a man sitting at the make-shift recording station that comprised of two laptops and a synthesizer, his back to the door. Diana could see him fiddling with the controls before him, the music flowing from the speakers changing volume and tone as he did it. Another man, small and wiry, with olive skin and curly hair sat straddling an office chair, his head bobbing with the beat of the song and one of his feet tapping against the floor.

Neither of them heard her and Chief come in.

“That last one was good, Steve,” the second man said loudly, speaking over the music.

“Which one?” the man whose back was turned to them asked.

“One where you amplified the--”

“Steve!” Chief called him louder.

So that was Steve Trevor, then.

Diana watched him raise his hand. “One moment,” he said without turning. He flipped some switch and ran his fingers over the keyboard, and the song jumped a few chords back. “I just need--” he started, glancing up, and cut off when he spotted her hovering at the door.

The second man turned to her and Chief as well, a question frozen on his lips, looking at Diana somewhat slack-jawed.

“I think we need to take ten,” he said after a few moments.

And that was when the music died at last, plunging the space into silence interrupted only by the ticking of a metronome that continued to sway from side to side on one of the shelves.

Diana shifted her attention to the man across the room, tilting her head a little.

Steve Trevor stared at her. And stared at her. And then stared at her some more.

Chief cleared his throat when the pause began to stretch. “Your 12.30 is here,” he said to Steve, sounding mildly amused.

“Oh, of course. I’m sorry.” Steve stood up hastily, nearly yanked back down into his chair by a pair of headphones hanging around his neck and a long cord attached to something under the desk. Diana watched him remove them, wincing, before he smoothed his hand over his hair. “I didn’t mean--” he stepped towards her. “Hi.”

“Diana, this is Steve Trevor. Steve, Diana,” Chief introduced them, his tone even.

The photographs she had seen online didn’t do any justice to the colour of his eyes, Diana noted absently as she studied him right back. Or the vivid life she could see in them. Or how tall he was when he was standing before her.

“Right, hi,” Steve repeated, holding out his hand.

“Diana Prince,” she said, shaking it. “It’s a pleasure…”

“And I’m Sameer,” the second man spoke, appearing before her and seemingly sidestepping her potential client. “Hello. You can call me Sammy.”

And he beamed at her brightly, his energy and enthusiasm making Diana want to beam back.

“Sameer is my publicist,” Steve explained in response to her puzzled look, trying to bite back his own smile. “I’m sorry we got a little caught up--”

“What’s going on here?”

Diana turned to find a short, stocky woman with a headful of wild red curls poke her head into the door, her eyes moving between them all.

“Charlie said…” she trailed off when her eyes landed on Diana. Her face smoothed out, a smile making an immediate appearance. “You must be Diana, Chief said we’d be having a visitor.”

She stepped into the room and grabbed Diana’s hand, giving it a firm shake. 

“Hello,” Diana said.

“Hi, I’m Etta Candy. I believe you have already met my boy, Charlie. I’m Steve’s secretary.”

“A secretary,” Diana echoed, glancing at the man in question.

“Yeah, well, you know, going wherever he tells me to go and doing whatever he tells me to do,” Etta gave her a _you-know-what-I-mean_ kind of look. 

“Sounds more like slavery to me,” Diana murmured, trying not to smile.

The tops of Steve’s cheeks flushed while Chief pointedly looked away and Sameer cleared his throat, trying to cover his chuckle. Etta smacked Steve lightly on his shoulder with the back of her hand.

“I like her,” she whispered theatrically.

Steve cleared his throat. “Look, Miss Prince--”

“Diana,” she corrected.

“Diana,” he paused. “Thank you for coming over, but I don’t think… This whole thing is Chief’s idea, this sudden concern for my safety. I’m not sure where it’s coming from,” he darted a quick look at Chief, and Diana got the distinct feeling that they’d had this exact conversation before, more times than they wanted to recall. “And I’m not sure it’s needed. As you can see,” Steve gestured around the room, “there’s no immediate danger here, and whatever this is about--”

“That’s alright,” Diana stopped him. “I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.”

“Yes, of course.” A pause. “Well, thank you, again, for stopping by. I’ll show you--” He made a move to walk past her. 

“No need, I can find my way out,” Diana said, and he stopped in his tracks.

“Of course. Sure.” Steve cleared his throat. Beside him, Diana heard Chief huff under his breath, and Sameer muttered something into his ear. “Thanks… again.”

She nodded and turned around without another word. Well, that was fast.

But why did it bother her so when she didn’t even want to take on this job in the first place?

“Diana, wait.” Chief started after her, his voice nearly swallowed by the music that began to play again. “Wait a second. Please.”

She didn’t slow down. “We had an agreement. One meeting. It’s done.”

“Will you hold on a second?”

He caught up with her at the door, placing his hand on it before she could pull it open. She noticed then that Steve’s publicist had followed them, both of their faces troubled. She did not like the look of that.

“What is it?” she asked, her eyes darting between the men.

The two exchanged a look.

“There’s something else,” Sameer said after a moment.

In the kitchen where they took her, Sameer pulled a few photographs out of an inside pocket of his vest and slid them towards Diana across the kitchen island. Small prints, something like what a person would frame and put on a desk in an office. All showing candid images of Steve Trevor.

Diana flipped through them. Low quality, she noted. As if taken from afar with a substantial zoom. One in a supermarket aisle. One in a bedroom, sitting against the headboard with a guitar on his lap, his fingers positioned on the strings as if he was strumming idly. Several in what appeared to be a hotel room – he wore nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips in those, his hair damp after a shower. On the last one, he was in a club, a bottle of beer in his hand, his lips stretched in an easy smile.

She put the photos down and looked at the men who were watching her intently.

“Paparazzi?” she suggested. “That’s what restraining orders--”

“No,” Chief interjected, shaking his head. “Check the backs.”

Diana did, finding short, handwritten messages on each of the photos. _Until we see each other again. Till next time, love. Missing you more than you can imagine_. And so on, and so forth.

Her brows furrowed.

“That’s…”

“I’m not an expert, but I don’t think paparazzi write love notes on the pictures they take and then send them to the object of their affection,” Sameer said, but his voice had that edge that bordered on panic and his joke fell flat in the charged air.

“They don’t.” Diana studied each photo once more.

“And those…” Chief pointed at the hotel room ones. “That’s the Mariotte in New York. Fourteenth floor.”

One couldn’t just casually sneak a peek in a window a hundred feet off the ground – he didn’t say that, but there was no need for it.

“Not even Boston,” Diana muttered. “They followed him?”

Sameer rubbed the back of his neck. “Appears so.”

Her gaze moved between the men. “How long has this been going on?”

They exchanged another look. “Not long… that we know of,” Chief replied. “The photos started coming in a few weeks ago. We thought it was a prank at first.”

She handed the photos back to Sameer. “He doesn’t know?”

The man shrugged. “Steve doesn’t pick up his mail, Etta does.” 

Diana’s eyes flickered towards the hallway. “And you didn’t tell him?”

Sameer grimaced a little. “We were kind of hoping we’d just take care of it before he has to find out about this. He’s got that new single coming out and then that big show in a few weeks…” he trailed off under her displeased scrutiny.

“Look, maybe it’s nothing,” Chief spoke, and Diana turned to him. “Or maybe it’s something.”

“It’s probably just someone who’s got too much time on their hands,” Sameer added, his voice hopeful. 

“Either way, if you could have a look at his security system, give it an upgrade…” Chief offered her a small smile. “Maybe just have a closer look around when he’s out and about, see if you can spot anyone. We would really appreciate your help, Diana.”

“He doesn’t want me here,” she pointed out, folding her arms over her chest, refusing to acknowledge how much that particular aspect displeased her when an hour ago she hadn’t wanted to be here, either.

“Oh, I’ll take care of that,” Sameer promised her eagerly. “You don’t need to worry.”

Diana bit her lip.

The music continued playing, the same song on repeat as Steve Trevor, apparently, proceeded to work on perfecting it. Somewhere in the house, she could hear a woman talking to a young boy, but their voices were too muffled and too far away for Diana to make out what they were saying.

“Alright,” she said at last, not sure what it was about the photographs that made her feel so uneasy. She’d had worse things to deal with in her life than obsessed fanatics. If Sameer was right, she’d be in and out of this task in three days flat. She gave Chief a pointed look. “But you have to tell him.”

The men grinned in unison.

\---

When Steve Trevor first started performing in dingy dive bars, and then local clubs, and then, eventually, at the same venues that once opened doors to such legends as Elton John, Bon Jovi and the Rolling Stones, people had told him that his life would change. That there were things he hadn’t even noticed, as a man living outside of the public eye, that would never be the same once his name started to be recognized and his music began to play on every radio station.

Over the years that had passed since a very drunk guitarist from a band that had split a few years ago had told him just that, Steve had found those words to be true more times than he could count. He had also found them to be a lie quite often, as well.

Things had changed, some for the worse, others for the better – he had sort of figured that it worked that way for everyone else, just not always in the same context. And while being recognized in grocery stores and being asked for autographs at the airport was something he had seen coming, if anyone had ever told him that he was going to spy on his own security from his home office, Steve would certainly think they’d lost their marbles.

And yet, here he was.

“I don’t understand… We’ve talked about it,” Steve said, pulling the drape in the second-floor spare bedroom that he had converted into a study (mostly for lack of better ideas rather than a need for one) and peeking out the window.

Below him, Diana Prince appeared to be inspecting his backyard. For what, Steve had yet to understand – not that he was sure he even wanted to. Not a horde of assassins, he hoped.

Over the past five days, she had arranged to change locks on all doors and windows, including the garage. She was also working on updating the surveillance software after proclaiming that the one that Steve had been using since he’d bought this house four years ago without a hitch was obsolete. Steve had mostly stayed out of her way. A public figure who had never been at a loss for words when dealing with massive crowds and inane questions from journalists, he would find himself fumbling for words around her. And that, Steve could admit, bothered him more than her presence.

Well, that was not strictly true. It was Diana’s presence that bothered him the most. That demented inability to say more than a few words to her was a close second though, his frustration amplified by the fact that everyone else seemed to be thrilled to have her there. Etta loved Diana and Sameer adored her, going above and beyond himself to chat her up. A few times, Steve had ever heard her laugh at Sameer’s jokes (even though they weren’t that funny).

Steve sighed.

Maybe Chief was right. There had been an incident at a show last year when one of his fans had decided to become unnecessarily friendly and familiar. Maybe Steve could take some extra precautions when it came to his personal safety. Better safe than sorry, right? But did Chief have to go and find the most beautiful woman Steve had ever seen to—to come and upend his whole life?

“No, _I _talked about it, and you didn’t listen,” Chief pointed out, his voice mild. 

“At the time I hoped you’d take it as a hint,” Steve sighed. “So, would you again walk me through why she’s here, exactly?”

He watched Diana unpack one of the small cameras and start to affix it to the fence running along his property. Even in the frigid October afternoon, she seemed to be perfectly comfortable in just a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She had her hair pulled in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and Steve wondered for perhaps the millionth time if it was as soft as it looked.

His fingers curled tighter around the curtain.

He took a steadying breath and pushed that thought away.

“Public image,” Chief said from the desk where he was updating Steve’s calendar.

Steve glanced at him. “I need a bodyguard to serve my public image,” he repeated, unconvinced.

Chief shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Right. So…” Steve glanced outside again, craning his neck to see were Diana had moved. “Where did you even find her?”

Chief glanced at him. “Diana is an old friend of mine.”

“I’m also your old friend,” Steve countered. “Shouldn’t we have the same old friends?”

At that, Chief straightened up in his chair and pulled off his thin-rimmed glasses, giving Steve one of those studious stares that seemed to be intended to see straight into one’s soul. Steve shifted from foot to foot, more exposed under Chief’s scrutiny than he found comfortable.

“Do you have any particular concerns, Steve?” the other man inquired calmly.

“No, it’s just…” Steve’s lips quirked when he spotted Charlie sneaking outside through the back door and diving into the hedge that ran along the fence as he started to crawl through a layer of fallen foliage towards Diana. The boy appeared to be quite taken with her as well. “When you said _a bodyguard_, I imagined someone… not quite like her.”

Chief’s brows crept up all the way to his hairline. “Because she’s a woman?”

_Because she looks like someone who should be winning Miss Universe pageants, not crawling around my backyard looking for mines_. Was she looking for mines? What _was_ she doing?

Steve didn’t say any of that.

“That’s _not_ what I meant,” he insisted emphatically and let out a frustrated breath. “Never mind.”

“Don’t worry, she’s not going to steal your spotlight,” Chief smirked.

Steve scowled at him. “Not what I meant, either.”

He closed the curtain very deliberately and stepped away from the window, although that kind of left him standing aimlessly in the middle of the room.

His scowl deepening, he walked over to the couch. He plopped down and ran his hand over his face.

“We’ll give it a few weeks,” Chief said patiently. “See how it goes. She’ll update your security system and then… you’ll decide what to do next.”

“But do I really need perimeter cameras in my backyard?” Steve asked, not willing to give in and actually admitting his defeat in this argument.

“Well, I’m not a specialist on--”

“Hey, Steve.” Sameer poked his head into the room, cutting Chief off. “Aren’t you meeting Harry at the studio in…” He checked his watch. “Ten minutes ago?”

Steve’s eyes widened. “Shit!” He scurried up to his feet. “This conversation is not over,” he said to Chief, as he was already halfway out the door, and without waiting for a response.

\---

It took Diana all of three days to catch up on Steve’s routines – which, in her line of work, was not necessarily a good thing.

There was a gym in the basement of his house where he would spend an hour or two each morning, and occasionally sometime during the day when he needed to clear his head. He had a housekeeper who would come over twice a week to keep the place in order but preferred to cook for himself – he’d even made Diana breakfast twice when she’d shown up earlier than they’d agreed. If nothing else, she appreciated the gesture even if they’d eaten mostly in silence.

After he had made his position about her presence known on the first day they’d met, he’d never brought it up again. He had even offered her a spare bedroom should the need arise for her to stay in the house overnight. Yet, even though Steve Trevor was perfectly polite each time they had spoken, he clearly wasn’t interested in going out of his way to make friends with her. Diana decided that she was fine with that, and that a well-cooked breakfast was a nice bonus to her check.

Despite her initial prejudice and an assumption that someone like him would depend on others for every aspect of their life, Diana was surprised to realize that she actually liked him. Liked his smile and the way his face would light up when he spoke of something he felt strongly about, and that he didn’t feel the need to talk just to fill the silence. She respected his work ethic and the long hours he put in the studio, and how, despite his status, he treated everyone around him with the utmost respect. 

She had learned that Napi and Etta were around six days a week, and that while Sameer stopped by most days, it was not as frequently as the other two. Diana suspected that his awkward attempts at flirting with her were half the reason for his visits, although she didn’t have the heart to ask him to stop, finding his compliments endearing rather than bothersome. Etta’s son, Charlie, came over every day after school and also with her on Saturday, and sometimes, when Steve had a free moment, they’d toss a ball around in the driveway. 

Diana had yet to spot the army of dalliances that the press claimed paraded through Steve’s bed. A speculation that intrigued and amused her greatly. If he added that to his already packed schedule, the man would surely keel over.

“Steve had a bad breakup a few years ago,” Etta had told her when Diana casually broached the subject. “There hasn’t been anyone since.”

She hadn’t elaborated on what she considered a ‘bad breakup’, or a good one for that matter, and Diana hadn’t pressed for more, choosing to take it as one less issue for her to think about as far as his safety was concerned.

There hadn’t been any new photographs or messages since she’d arrived, and although both Napi and Sameer had decided to take it as a good sign – the previous ones had apparently been delivered at shorter intervals – Diana decided to hold on to her end of the bargain and upgrade the safety of the place before passing any further judgement on the necessity of her involvement.

Which was exactly why she found herself in the backyard with four perimeter cameras and a screwdriver on a Friday afternoon, examining the space that hadn’t seen a gardener since summer, apparently.

Diana was in the middle of installing the second camera when the rusting in the bushes at her feet caught her attention, making her lips tug up at the corners.

“I can see you. You know that, right?” she said without looking down.

A moment later, Charlie poked his head out of the bush.

“Are you a spy?” he asked, looking up at her.

“No, but it seems to me that you are.”

“Maybe when I’m older,” the boy said thoughtfully. “Like James Bond.” He crawled out onto the lawn and stood up, brushing the dirt from his pants. “Do you have a gun?” he continued, watching Diana’s hands move until the camera was fixed in place.

She glanced at him, biting her lip around a smile.

“No.”

He scrunched his face. “Have you ever shot one?”

“Yes.”

Charlie nodded and peeked into the box where the other two cameras waited for their turn.

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

Diana considered his question. “With a gun?” she clarified.

The boy’s face lit up just as it occurred to her that maybe this wasn’t the most appropriate conversation to have with a six-year-old.

“Charlie!” Etta called out from the house before he had a chance to open his mouth again and ask something else. Her head appeared in the kitchen window. “Lunch! Hurry up.”

“You wouldn’t want to miss that,” Diana said, raising an eyebrow, grateful for the interruption.

“I suppose.” Charlie looked up at her again. “And you probably wouldn’t want to miss that.”

He pointed his finger at something behind Diana, and when she turned, she saw Steve half-jogging towards his car parked in the driveway. And after they’d spoken two days ago about him not leaving the house on his own, too.

She had to press her lips together so as not to say a few choice words in front of the child.

\---

“You don’t have to do this,” Steve said when Diana pulled into traffic heading towards downtown. “I can drive my own car.”

He hoped that Harry, his producer, wouldn’t hold Steve’s 40-minute tardiness against him.

“I’m aware,” Diana said, expertly manoeuvring the busy streets and looking a thousand times more relaxed than Steve felt.

They drove in silence for a while with the scenery whirring and blurring outside their respective windows. Steve glanced at her surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye, as he tried to resist the urge to reach for the wheel or press the pedals under the dashboard, unaccustomed to travelling in the passenger seat. And then again when Diana appeared to be too focused on the task at hand to care about his scrutiny. Or maybe she just didn’t care, period.

“So, how do you know Chief?” he asked when the skyscrapers of downtown appeared before them and the silence began to feel a tad thick.

Diana gave him a quick sideways look. “We’re old friends.”

Steve’s lips quirked. “Yeah, that’s what he said. But what does it mean?”

If he was going to have his producer dump him for the absence of professionalism and disrespect towards his time, Steve at least wanted to be able to say that it wasn’t entirely for nothing. Might as well get to know his head of security, or whatever she preferred to call herself, a little better.

“It means we go way back,” Diana explained.

“No, I know what it _means_,” he rolled his eyes and caught her trying to fight off a smile. She was teasing him, Steve realized, and that epiphany made his mouth go dry momentarily. He cleared his throat. “I mean… what are you?”

She glanced at him, a confused frown appearing between her brows. “_What_ am I?”

“Like… CIA or something?” he pressed. Her smile stretched out wider at that, and, encouraged, he continued. “KGB? Mossad?” He paused. “Please tell me you’re not an ex Mossad.”

Without looking away from the road, Diana raised an eyebrow at him. “And why would that be a bad thing?”

Steve chuckled. “Well, for one thing, that would be terrifying. I’d feel more scared than safe around you.”

She laughed at that, shaking her head at his ridiculous supposition, leaving Steve feeling stupidly pleased with himself for being able to inspire such a lovely sound. Making him want to do it over and over again.

God damn it…

“You needn’t worry then,” Diana said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

He watched the line of her shoulders relax even as the traffic grew worse, slowing them down in the bottleneck leading into the city.

“Oh yeah?” Feeling emboldened, he reached over and pulled the sleeve of her leather jacket up, revealing a silver metal gauntlet wrapped around her wrist. He tapped his fingertip lightly on it, their eyes meeting briefly. “And what are these?”

“Fashion,” she responded evenly, unfazed, as she pulled to a stop outside the building that housed Harry’s office.

“Fashion,” he hummed with a shake of his head and pushed the door open.

Well, even if he did lose his album deal with Harry, he’d still have a good reason to consider this an excellent day. They were making progress, as far as human interaction was concerned.

Harry was pissed. He had given Steve an earful – first for being nearly an hour late _(“I have other responsibilities, you know!”_) and then for Diana who had decided to inspect his office even after Steve had directly and explicitly asked her to stay in the waiting area _(“What the hell did she think she was looking for?”)_

Steve nodded obediently and allowed the other man to have his moment and let out steam before they could proceed to discussing more pressing issues. Truth be told, Harry’s frustration wasn’t uncalled for. He tried not to smile when Harry called Diana a _Lady Rambo_, although he’d also made a mental note not to mention it to her. Just to be safe.

He didn’t lose the deal, although if Steve had to guess, it was a close call. He _did_ have to promise Harry that Diana wouldn’t search his office again, even though he probably couldn’t actually guarantee it, but, at the time, it had felt like the right thing to do to avoid further confrontation. And all the while, he’d tried not to enjoy the moment as much as he did.

“You’re not that big of a star, Trevor,” Harry had grumbled when Steve was leaving, and that, for some reason, had made Steve’s smile stretch out wider.

He and Diana were on their way back to his house an hour later, soft blues playing on the radio, when she twisted the steering wheel suddenly, taking a sharp turn across two lanes and earning a cacophony of honks and a few yells.

Her manoeuvre tossed Steve against the door and he fumbled for the handle, clutching it tightly as she sped up down a side street.

“Whoa!” he protested. “I think that was the wrong--” he cut off when he noticed her tight, white-knuckled grip on the wheel and her eyes darting between the road and the rear-view mirror. “Diana--”

Ignoring him, she stepped onto the accelerator and then twisted the wheel again, the tires screeching against the asphalt as she took another abrupt turn. One that had Steve flying in her direction this time.

“I’m sorry…” he started, landing half in her lap.

“By the gods, please hold on,” she muttered, clutching the stick and yanking it hard to change speeds without removing her foot from the gas.

Yeah, he figured that.

“What the hell was that?” Steve demanded, regaining his balance as he scrambled back to his seat, his heart fluttering somewhere in his throat.

He twisted around, trying to see whatever it was that she was attempting to get away from in the back window but failed to set any car apart in the steady flow of traffic behind and around them.

Diana didn’t appear to hear him or chose to ignore his question. Instead, she muttered something under her breath that, to Steve, sounded like a curse in a language he couldn’t identify. His stomach flopped when she increased the speed again, taking narrow alleys and then flying into three-lane streets only to dive into yet another side lane. After a while, he began to ignore the honking himself, having figured out that it was the least of their problems.

Steve didn’t know how long it lasted – ten minutes? Half-hour? - but suddenly, the car swung to the left and stopped abruptly in his own driveway, the gate starting to close with a whir immediately behind them. When he looked back, he saw a black sedan speed by it without slowing down and disappear around the corner.

He slumped against his seat, his heart galloping wildly in his chest, and took a few shaky breaths before he found his voice again.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, turning to look at Diana who was staring straight ahead, her hands still gripping the steering wheel. Her lips were pressed together and her breaths were short and shallow. 

Until then, Steve hadn’t realized what it must have been like for her to have to do all that, to have to practically _fly_ through the car-packed downtown at rush hour with… apparently, someone following them.

Slowly, she let go of the wheel and turned to him.

“What the actual hell just happened?” he rasped.

She glanced in the side mirror at the gate that was closed now, the street behind it empty.

“We need to talk,” she said, looking at him again.

Steve ran his hand over his hair. “Yeah, no kidding.”

\---

“And I’m only hearing about this now why?” Steve demanded after Chief had laid out the whole story to him, his heart giving a hollow thud every now and then as if it hadn’t quite decided whether they were in some overdrive mode still or not.

Truth be told, Steve hadn’t yet figured that out, either.

The photos lay spread out on the coffee table before him, but he refused to touch them. The cursory look at them was enough to make him feel exposed and dirty, making him wish he could go and take a shower and then lock himself in the basement for the next six months. Somewhere no one would be able to find him and violate his privacy, invading his life as if it wasn’t his at all. As if he was an exhibit on display for everyone to gawk at.

“We hoped it was a prank,” Sameer said, sheepishly.

Steve huffed under his breath, but both Sameer and Chief looked so shaken he didn’t have it in him to be as mad as he should be. Granted, they hadn’t been the ones who’d got chased through half of Boston by – _probably_ – a maniac, but he knew they’d meant well.

He rubbed his eyes and let out a slow breath.

A suggestion to call the police had come up but was dismissed – there had been no threats, and a car following them back from the studio wouldn’t be easy to prove or justify as an actual act of stalking. Not in a city where the law enforcement had other pressing matters to attend to, Steve was certain.

That explained Diana, at least. Diana, who had spent most of their heated conversation standing by the window, her back rigid and her arms folded over her chest. And that, admittedly, made Steve feel better even if it meant quite possibly dealing with his own psychopath. He yearned to know what she was thinking about this all, his gaze drifting to her every now and then, but somehow, he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask and she hadn’t volunteered an opinion.

It was decided that he would abandon his routines, mix up his routes, and never try to leave the house alone until this issue was resolved. Etta would screen all his calls, and if another photograph or any other sort of message came in, they would call the police, regardless of how paranoid or harmless this all seemed.

He was suddenly quite grateful for those new locks on the doors. And the cameras that made the house feel like it was his own Fort Knox.

By the time everyone left for the night, Steve felt so drained he could barely stand upright. Briefly, he contemplated going back to his studio to tinker with the new song he was working on, one that he and Harry had discussed earlier, but the idea alone seemed exhausting, his mind too scattered. There was no way he could make any progress when he was so shaken and out of sorts.

In the end, he simply headed upstairs and tried not to overthink the fact that Diana was still camped out in the kitchen, adjusting the settings of the camera feeds on his laptop. She knew to lock the door properly when she left, Steve reasoned with himself.

Besides, aside from the fact that his heart twinged each time he looked at her for reasons that he didn’t want to go into, her presence made him feel safe.

The sleep didn’t come. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy, his mind stuck on an endless loop of replaying the drive across town over and over and over again. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw himself in the driver’s seat, with his hands on the wheel and the headlights of another car closing in on him blindingly bright in the rear-view mirror. He’d hear the sound of metal bending and glass breaking, followed by the screech of tires and an explosion of an airbag in his face.

Steve rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, waiting for his heartbeat to settle, his body drained but his mind too wired, making him feel like someone had set his brain on fire.

At last, sometime after midnight, he gave up. He kicked off the blankets and padded out of the room and down the stairs, the silence around him that he always found comforting was now ominous, making his skin prickle.

The light was still on in the kitchen, a making of a frown creeping onto Steve’s face when he spotted it. At first, he assumed that Diana must have forgotten to turn it off when she’d left, but when he stepped inside, he found her sitting at the kitchen island.

Steve paused, hovering in the doorway. It took him a moment to realize that she had swapped a pair of black jeans and a t-shirt for a tank top and pyjama shorts, the hair that he had only ever seen pulled back in a bun or a ponytail was now loose, falling down her shoulders. And if that wasn’t enough to feel like a punch in the gut, the tub of ice-cream sitting before her definitely did the trick.

The whole image looked like walking straight into a dream.

She looked up.

“Steve.”

Well, apparently it was a bit too late for him to feel self-conscious about his sweats and ratty t-shirt.

“I didn’t know we had ice-cream,” he said dumbly.

Diana pressed her lips around a smile. “It’s Charlie’s, I think,” she explained. “I’ll replace it tomorrow.”

Steve nodded. And then nodded once more, feeling ridiculous.

“You’re still here,” he said next.

“The guest room,” she began. “You said I could--”

“Of course,” he assured her quickly. “Anytime you need…”

For a moment, they merely looked at one another across the ten feet of space.

“I thought you’d feel better if you weren’t alone tonight, after everything,” she said quietly.

Steve nodded again. “I would. I do.”

He cleared his throat, having already forgotten why he’d decided to come downstairs in the first place. If he’d known she was here, he would have—he would have come sooner, he thought. When did she bring her sleepwear over here?

Diana pushed the ice-cream across the kitchen island towards him and arched an eyebrow in a silent question.

He blinked at her.

Oh, what the hell. He could use some ice-cream.

Steve found a spoon in the cutlery drawer and then climbed onto one of the tall stools across from Diana, feeling somewhat less of a jittery mess for the first time in hours. The story that Chief had revealed to him earlier still bumped around his head, refusing to settle, the pictures of him clearly taken from outside his own house making him feel haunted. But there was little he could do about it tonight, he decided.

He scooped some ice-cream, making a mental note to thank Charlie for his excellent taste later. Cookie dough. Steve’s favourite.

“You know, I didn’t get a chance to say this earlier, but… thank you.” He looked up. “For, well, saving my ass, I guess.”

Diana smiled, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “That’s what I’m here to do, no?” 

Steve chuckled, shaking his head a little.

“And for… being here,” he added, softly, holding her gaze.

Diana nodded, searching his face. He wondered what it was that she saw. If it was as bad on the outside as it felt on the inside, that _something_ that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He thought she was going to say something else, but she didn’t. She looked out the dark window instead.

“You think they’ll come back?” Steve asked then, his smile slipping, the darkness outside the house feeling overwhelming. “Whoever that was—you think there’ll be more?”

“Yes,” Diana replied.

He appreciated her honesty, even if it made him feel sick to his stomach.

They stayed quiet after that, pushing the ice-cream tub back and forth until it was almost empty, with nothing left to say on the subject.

“Can I ask you something?” he spoke after a while.

“Of course.”

Steve rested his forearms on the counter, leaning against it as he twisted the spoon in his fingers. “I don’t… I don’t want you to, uh… take it the wrong way.”

Diana pulled the tub closer to herself. “That’s what people always say when there is no other way to take it,” she noted, a smile pulling on the corners of her mouth.

“Yeah, well…” His lips twitched a little, although it did little to help with his heart that was fluttering wildly in his chest. “Will you go out with me?”

She paused.

“Steve…”

“I don’t mean it like--” he added quickly, hoping he didn’t look as disappointed as he felt by her immediate reaction. “Not like that. I don’t mean it as a… date or anything.” He exhaled slowly. “It’s just… tomorrow’s Saturday.”

Diana was watching him still, waiting for clarification.

“I usually go out on Saturday,” Steve explained, rolling his shoulders in a half-shrug. “Meet up with some friends, have a couple of beers, play a game of pool.” He paused, scrubbing his hand down his face. “Earlier, you said that I should mix up my routine, do things differently.”

“That would be advisable, yes,” Diana nodded.

“Right, so…” he cleared his throat and continued. “If I were to go somewhere tomorrow, you’d come with me anyway, correct?”

She tilted her head slightly to her shoulder. “Yes.”

“Well, all I’m saying is… Why don’t we just do it together? I mean, go somewhere not with you walking five feet behind me but, you know, _next _to me.” He dropped his gaze, suddenly very interested in the patterns and the texture of the counter. “I don’t…” He let out a long breath before looking up at her once more. “I just don’t want to feel like a prisoner in my own house.”

It was Diana’s turn to look down and stare into the mostly empty ice-cream tub.

“You don’t have to agree,” Steve murmured when the pause started to stretch and the ticking on the old clock all the way in the living room had grown unbearably loud without him noticing. It made him want, somewhat desperately, to go five minutes back in time and maybe reconsider a thing or two. This offer had clearly been a mistake. “Like I said, I didn’t mean it in a--” he began, wishing to amend it.

“Alright.”

Steve lifted his head to find Diana studying him, the small smile that was doing some serious damage to his insides back in place.

“You mean, yes?” he clarified.

“Yes,” Diana laughed. “But I get to pick the place,” she added, and the smile that broke across Steve’s face all but split his head in half.

He was going to buy Charlie a whole truck of ice-cream.

\---

Once upstairs, after she’d told Steve to go get some rest and then checked all the doors again, Diana turned on the reading lamp by the bed and lowered down to sit on the edge of the mattress.

On the nightstand, the gauntlets that she’d taken off earlier winked at her, reflecting the dim light. Diana picked them up, running her fingers along the carvings on the metal surface, both decorative and the marks received in battle. A testament to her strength and the means to channel her power. She used to find comfort in wearing them. Now, more often than not, they were merely a reminder of how she couldn’t save everyone even if there was nothing she wanted more.

She shouldn’t have said yes to Steve, earlier. When he’d asked, it had come as such a surprise that it had caught her completely off-guard, rendering her speechless for a few moments. In the days since she’d come to work for him, their communication was stilted and sparse, a matter of necessity rather than interest in knowing one another. Or at least that was the impression she’d got. Until this afternoon and their banter in the car that made Diana feel light as air, and the way he’d looked at her downstairs not even an hour ago, making her heart squeeze.

He was nothing like what she’d imagined he would be when she had first stepped into his house, and the clash between her expectations and the real person was making her mind reel. The person with crinkling eyes and infectious laughter and kindness she didn’t come across very often.

Diana put the gauntlets aside and stood up, pacing the room that overlooked the dark backyard, restless and antsy beyond reasons that had anything to do with the car chase and the conversation that had followed.

She should have said no, Diana thought once again, pausing in front of the window as she worked on breathing around that familiar pang of fear in her chest.

She should have… But she hadn’t because she had really wanted to say yes.

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, I marked this story as a three-chapter earlier but there will actually be four parts, sorry about the confusion :) You'll get them all within the next several days either way, I promise! 
> 
> Thank you all for the wonderful response to the previous part! I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story as much :)

“So, this is your kind of scene, huh?” Steve asked as he took in the rustic interior of the bar with its crude-looking tables, framed photos of rock bands and actors who had been popular in the 80s hanging on the walls, and neon lights above the bottle shelves behind the bar counter.

It was busy enough, as any place would be on a Saturday night, but not packed, and despite looking rather worn and shabby on the outside, it smelled not unpleasantly of wood polish and cooking food. Vinyl booths lining one of the walls reminded Steve of a 70s style diner.

Whatever it was that he had expected Diana to pick after she’d told him the night before that she would be in charge of the venue, this place decidedly wasn’t it. But despite its questionable music and rather…  _ interesting _ clientele – he had spotted two cowboy hats and three pairs of cowboy boots and more leather jackets than he thought existed in Boston - Steve decided that he liked it anyway.

“No, but this is the opposite of everything that  _ your _ scene is, so…” Diana paused when the waitress brought a large plate of fries and their drinks.

“No chance to run into anyone,” Steve nodded.

“No chance for anyone who doesn’t belong to go unnoticed,” Diana corrected.

He looked around once more and decided that he couldn’t argue with that.

“Clever.”

He picked up his beer and took a swig, giving the place another sweep with his gaze before he turned to the woman sitting across from him.

“Mind if I ask… Why do you do this?” He peered at Diana who was stirring the ice in her lemonade with a straw.  _ (“I don’t drink on the job,” she had told him earlier.) _ She looked up. “What you do for me,” he clarified. “What you’ve probably done for others. It’s not something… I supposed it’s not something many would do.”

Diana smiled. “Because I can’t sing.”

Steve chuckled, turning his bottle around in place by the neck. “Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta do the dirty work.”

She paused then and considered his question, her finger chasing the condensation up and down her glass, before saying at last, “It’s about protecting those who can’t protect themselves.”

He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “And you’d die for me?”

“If I have to.”

“Why?” he pressed, not sure why he wanted to know but feeling like it was important. Feeling like no one had asked her that before, too.

“It’s the job,” Diana replied evenly.

The answer didn’t surprise him, as didn’t the pang of disappointment that it brought. And Steve had to remind himself that had that not been her job, who the hell knew where he’d be after what had happened yesterday.

“It’s more than just that, though, isn’t it? There’s something about you…” He shook his head, not sure where he was going with that, or how to put it into words. “It doesn’t feel like it’s only a job, not to you.”

“Well, I’d say I do it for the company, but then we’d both know that I’m lying,” Diana said, raising a pointed eyebrow at him.

Steve laughed. “Okay, you got me there.”

He picked up a fry and tossed it into his mouth. Yeah, she definitely knew where to find quality junk food. They both fell silent when their orders arrived.

“So… now that we are sharing…” Steve started when they were alone again. He faltered and cleared his throat, all too aware of Diana watching him with mild amusement from across the table as if she could see straight into his soul. “Is there, ah… a Mr. Prince in the picture?” he asked with what he hoped passed for nonchalance. “Mr. Personal Security? Someone to share long cold stake-out nights with? I bet you’d use code names for fun.”

Diana bit her lip around a smile. “No.” She sipped her drink. “No one like that. I’ll try to remember the idea about code names, however.” She squeezed a puddle of ketchup onto the side of the plate and dipped a fry in it. “What about you, Steve?”

“Don’t you already know that from tabloids or other  _ reliable  _ sources?” he inquired, scoffing a little around the word “reliable”.

“I don’t read tabloids.”

“Oh.” She was still watching him, and he realized that she wasn’t joking. That she expected him to respond, the way she had. “Well…” He picked up a napkin. “Not anymore. It didn’t work out.”

“Why?”

“Why things don’t work out?” He shrugged and dropped his gaze, choosing to focus on peeling the label from his bottle with his thumb. “They just don’t. You meet someone and you think they’re everything to you. And then you start drifting apart and don’t even notice it until one day you wake up and don’t even recognize them anymore.”

Diana put her glass down. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“That’s alright. If you are willing to die for me, might as well know a secret or two.” He smiled even though it didn’t touch his eyes. “You’re taking them to the grave, anyway.”

That made Diana huff, but the tension drained out of her posture as she leaned against the back of her bench. “You’re ridiculous.”

Steve took another swig of his beer. “Cheers to that.”

They stayed quiet for a few moments after that.

“What?” Diana asked after a while, when she looked up from the food and found him studying her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you,” Steve confessed, and it came out soft and a tad more sincere than he’d meant it to. Not with this mess unfolding around him and his feelings all over the place.

He grimaced inwardly and picked up a fork just so he would have something to do with his hands, nervous all of sudden.

Diana smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was,” he said. “Believe me, it was.”

“And what about you, Steve Trevor?” she asked, sipping her lemonade. “Would you say you are a typical example of your sex?”

“I’d like to believe that I’m… above average,” he said after a brief consideration.

Diana blinked at him for a second before her face split into a grin so majestic all he could do was stare at her, slightly slack-jawed. One that made something snap loose in his chest, his very soul unravelling in front of his eyes. Something that almost hurt to feel.

He smirked at her reaction, shaking his head and ignoring the heat rising up the back of his neck. He was not an insecure man, and this was exactly the kind of comment he’d tossed around before, meaning it unashamedly and forgetting about it ten seconds later because, to him, it was not something to dwell on. Never had been. But this was Diana, a woman who had a remarkable ability to make him fumble for words and feel like a clumsy kid, bragging about something dumb to a girl he liked to make her notice him.

And he could not for the life of him figure out how he was supposed to go about that. Not when she was sitting across from him, with the smile that made him forget how to think each time their eyes met. Somehow, he couldn’t care less about looking like an idiot to her.

And there it was again, the small voice in the back of his mind, warning him against taking another step in the direction from which there was no coming back. Steve brushed it off, aware if somewhat belatedly that it was too late. Had been too late for a while now.

He pulled out his wallet, fumbling with it for a moment, and then looked up.

“Hey, do you have a few quarters?”

Puzzled, Diana reached into her pocket and then dropped some coins into his palm.

Steve’s grin widened. “Be right back,” he said, sliding out of the booth. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He felt her gaze on him as he walked towards the back of the bar, manoeuvring his way between small tables and rowdy patrons and servers with trays until he reached the jukebox sitting near the door leading to the kitchen. The song selection on it wasn’t stellar, and none of them would have been his choice of music under other circumstances, but there were a few pieces that made him nod to himself with approval as he scanned the list.

Steve dropped the coins into the slot and pressed as many buttons as the machine would allow him.

It wasn’t much but it would do, he thought as he walked back to their table.

Diana lifted her gaze to his, her eyebrow raised quizzically. “What was that about?”

“Come on,” he said, pulling her out of the booth and leading her towards the clear area in front of an empty stage where several couples were already dancing.

“What are you doing?” she asked when he turned and drew her closer.

“What people come to a place like this to do,” Steve replied. “Dancing.”

Diana looked around them skeptically. “This doesn’t look much like dancing,” she observed. “It’s more like… swaying.”

“Yeah, well, there is only so much you can do to Billy Joel,” Steve agreed.

She didn’t stop him, though, when his hand slipped to rest on the small of her back and she didn’t pull away, moving ever so slightly with him to the crooning voice and the song about love lost and found.

It was such a small thing, Steve thought. This wasn’t even a date, not in the general sense. But he liked the feel of Diana’s body against his, relaxed at last, or as close to it as he could imagine, at least. Or remember, for that matter. Liked the way she smelled ever so faintly of something fresh, like sunshine and ocean even though they were miles away from the sea, and how soft her hair was each time it brushed against his cheek.

He wrote songs for a living, giving others what he was currently experiencing. But try as he might, Steve couldn’t recall the last time he’d danced, and the irony of it wasn’t lost on him.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, just barely moving, her hand in his and his fingers running absently over her knuckles. More than the three songs that he had selected. The voices around them grew louder, the crowd bigger. Someone had taken over their booth, Steve noticed out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t care less. For the first time since Diana had pulled into his driveway a little over 24 hours ago, with his heart quite literally trying to jump out of his chest, he finally felt at peace. And he was adamant and desperate to hold on to that feeling.

A loud crash of breaking glass had her tense and pull away from him, searching for the source of the sound.

Steve turned around to find a waitress sweeping a broken beer mug into a pan, the woman in his arms as rigid as a piece of rod now, the easiness that had settled between them gone.

He looked at Diana, watching her let out a breath and seemingly trying to force herself to snap back into the place they had both been only moments ago. She swept the bar with her eyes once again, glancing once more at the man who was apologizing profusely for knocking the glass off the table.

“Is it always like this for you?” Steve asked quietly.

Diana looked up at him. “Like what?”

“Like you are waiting for someone to pounce on you.” He wasn’t sure how else to put it. “You keep watching the front door, and if I had to guess, you probably have at least three escape routes figured out.”

He meant that as a joke, the last part, and to Diana’s credit, she tried to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it, and the moment between them was lost.

“Sometimes,” she said honestly. Steve wondered if she even knew that her eyes darted to the front door one more time. “It’s my job to keep you safe.”

“I feel safe,” he murmured.

When their eyes met, it felt like a sucker punch that all but knocked him down to his knees.

“Do you want to leave?” she asked.

\---

Earlier, Diana had promised herself that after dinner – a deal they’d made, which she had honoured – she would drive Steve to his place and wish him a good night. And then she would head back to her place, alone.

She should have done that, she knew it. Had every reason to stick to her plan and leave that whole thing hovering between them right where it belonged.

And yet, here he was, poking around her living room, more fascinated with her books and the Greek figurines lined along her mantle than they warranted. Even the beer that Diana had offered him when they’d arrived was left barely touched on the coffee table.

Leaning against the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room area, she watched Steve with a touch of amusement, answering an occasional question and trying to find it in her to offer him to drive him back.

She didn’t.

“You sure have a lot of Greek stuff here,” Steve said, touching gingerly a vase that depicted a battle between a Minotaur and one of the many heroes who had braved the Labyrinth to defeat the beast.

Diana wondered what he’d think if she told him it wasn’t a replica.

“I like history,” she explained. “I think mankind doesn’t honour it enough. If they did, perhaps, they would know to learn from it.”

Steve glanced at her. “I suppose you are not wrong about that.”

He put the vase down. She watched him move to her shield and sword hanging on the wall – a disguise as good as any, she figured, even though she seldom had visitors who she needed to hide them from. Not for a long time now. He traced the carvings on the surface of the shield, his fingertips lingering on dents and scarring from battle. Diana thought he would ask about it, but he didn’t.

“May I?” Steve asked, jerking his chin towards the sword instead.

Amused, Diana gestured to him to go on.

Carefully, he removed it from the wall, testing its weight in his hand before he swung it once, twice with a soft swishing sound, the smile on his face one of pure joy.

“Always wanted to do that,” he muttered, giving it another swing. “It’s heavier than it looks.”

“Very sharp, too,” Diana said, taking a sip of her wine.  _ (“I’m not on the job in my own house,” she had told him earlier, when he raised his eyebrow at the sight of a glass in her hand when she’d retrieved beer for him.) _ “I would be careful with it.”

He chuckled and gave her sword an easy spin with his wrist, making Diana’s eyebrow arch.

“You’ve done that before,” she observed, smiling.

Steve grinned. “Never with the real thing,” he confessed, giving it another appreciative look before he set it down. “What about this?”

Diana pushed away from the counter, moving towards him. Her hand closed around his arm before he touched the coiled Lasso, his fingers frozen a few inches away from it.

“Don’t.”

“What is it?” Steve asked, turning to her.

She hesitated. This was a magic that his people knew nothing of; one that they feared because they didn’t understand it. Part of Diana feared it as well, feared the force of it and the power that coursed through her own veins when she wielded it.

Few people knew about that side of her life, about the fight she kept on carrying for longer than humans lived. Fewer were still around, having been taken from her or having left at their own will. To answer Steve’s question would be to let him in, to reveal part of her to him that he would never know existed, otherwise. And like every other time Diana had done that before, it filled her with unease.

“It’s called the Lasso of Hestia, it compels you to speak the truth,” she said, at last, watching him.

She thought he would think she was joking. Wouldn’t have blamed him for it, either.

Instead, Steve pulled his arm out of her grasp. Diana watched his hand curl over the Lasso, his eyes barely leaving hers. She didn’t know if he believed her, but there was no uncertainty in him. (If anything, it frightened her more.)

“I’m not scared of the truth,” he said quietly.

Diana hesitated. And when he made no attempt to step back from her, she took the Lasso from him. She bent his arm at the elbow, making him hold his hand up, and then looped one end of the Lasso around his wrist, his pulse fluttering beneath her touch when her fingers brushed against his skin.

She heard his breath hitch when the Lasso started to glow, casting a golden hue over his face.

“It’s really hot,” Steve rasped, his eyes growing wide as he looked down, mesmerized and shocked, as she knew he would be.

Diana could feel his whole body grow tense next to her, his hand curling instinctively into a fist. She had known of ancient magic for as long as she lived, could feel it flow in her own veins since the day she was born. But this was different. It was not often that she got to see someone else experience it for the first time, to hear their heartbeat escalate in awe and fear of the unknown.

“It won’t burn you,” she promised quietly, moving closer to Steve, her hand curling around his wrist atop the Lasso, barely feeling the heat of it. 

He looked up then, their eyes meeting and, like many times before, his gaze landed on her like a blow. In her chest, her heart slammed against the inside of her ribs and then plummeted into her stomach.

She knew exactly what she was doing when she had said yes to him the night before, just like she had known what was going to happen when she had brought him to her house. Yet, the world swayed beneath her feet anyway, and even though she had meant for her touch to reassure him, it was Steve who was seemingly keeping her stable on her feet.

Diana could feel the magic thrumming in the Lasso even if it wasn’t her who it was pulsing through.

She saw the exact moment it took hold of Steve, his breath catching, the change in his face subtle but unmistakable. She was ready to pull the Lasso off when he spoke, his voice reverent.

“I can’t stop thinking about you, Diana,” he whispered, his eyes roaming over her features. “Can’t since the day you walked into my home. You’re like a spell that I can’t shake off… and god knows I don’t want to. And it terrifies me.”

He paused and swallowed, ducking his head closer to hers, their foreheads nearly touching.

“Are you scared of me?” she whispered.

He was shaking his head. “No, not of you. Never of you.” He lifted his other hand and tucked a piece of hair around her ear, his fingers lingering on her cheek. Like he couldn’t seem to stand to let go. “Of everything I feel when I’m around you. But not of you.”

Her hand went still on his wrist as she watched him trying to get a hold of the whirlwind of thoughts she knew was rushing through his mind. Too many. Too out of control.

“I don’t know what to make of you,” Steve confessed. Diana watched him close his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, his gaze was sharp and clear. “And what I’m going to say will sound crazy, but I don’t care what that person wants, why they are after me… I don’t want them to be found because I don’t know what will happen with you when they are. I’m not scared of them, but I’m terrified of not having enough to offer to make you stay.”

Diana’s fingers curled over the lapel of his jacket, the words pouring out of Steve’s mouth making her head swim. Earlier, she had thought that there was nothing that could have knocked the ground from beneath her again, but here he was, proving her wrong when she knew he didn’t even mean to.

She moved closer still, bridging what little space was left between them.

“Steve.”

“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” he murmured, his voice unsteady as he cradled her face in his palms. “It sounds crazy… God help me, I know it does, but I look at you, and I want things I never  knew existed.”

His breath was warm on her lips and his heart was beating frantically beneath her palm. Diana kissed him then, cutting him off because she couldn’t stand not to. She thought she heard him whisper her name again, the sound like a prayer, but it was lost in the blood rush in her ears and the hum of need beneath her skin.

She tugged at the Lasso, unravelling it from his hand, and it fell to the floor, coiling at their feet. Freed, Steve tilted her face to his, kissing her properly, hungry and frantic. His body pushed against hers and his lips parted beneath Diana’s, searching for permission. She gave it without hesitation, deepening the kiss, desire pulsing in her veins.

Steve made a sound in the back of his throat; the desperation he had spoken of earlier nearly as palpable as his touch. His hands slid down her shoulders, over her back, until they curled around her hips as he drew her against him, sending her inner alarm into overdrive. She was stronger than most, faster and more resilient, but her heart felt exposed now, more vulnerable than she remembered it to ever be. It had been a long time since she’d let anyone in, and her entire being screamed against it.

Diana pushed the thought away as her arms wound around his neck. She felt Steve’s palms move underneath her jacket, slipping under the thin blouse at the small of her back, his touch making her blood feel like molten lava, her teeth dragging along his bottom lip and coaxing another groan out of him. One that sent a thrill of desire down Diana’s spine, making her wonder what else he could make her feel.

Steve kissed her until she was drunk and dazed and entirely intoxicated before he pulled back at last, his chest heaving and his forehead pressed against hers.

“I could take you home, if you’d like,” Diana offered in a barely audible whisper – felt  _ obligated _ to offer, to give him a way out.

It took Steve a few tries to open his eyes and find his voice. When their eyes met, his were dark with want, making her mouth go dry momentarily.

“No,” he rasped, shaking his head for emphasis.

She kissed him again.

\---

If anyone asked Diana what would she have done differently if she could go back in time and start her life over, if anyone offered her a choice to do so, she didn’t think she would take a different path. Even with the losses she had gone through and the heartbreak that sometimes felt like it had split her in half, she took pride in everything that she was, everything she had become.

Her mother used to say that it took great strength for one to learn from their pain instead of descending into misery and despair. Diana didn’t view it that way, necessarily, but she was also acutely aware of how each step she’d taken had brought her to the moments in her life that were filled with joy. Moments that she treasured despite the uncertainty and hardships she had experienced in-between them. You couldn’t erase the bad parts without losing the good ones along with them, and that, to her, was too high a price for changing the past.

She was thinking that when, afterwards, Steve gathered her in his arms and she was suddenly overcome with a sensation she couldn’t describe in any way other than  _ coming home _ . One that left her with so much longing she could barely stand it. Like she wanted to bottle it and hold on to it for as long as she existed in this world, her chest constricting around tenderness towards him.

They had left the light in the living room on, but the bedroom was dark and quiet and still. Eventually, Steve’s heartbeat settled beneath her cheek and his breathing evened out, and if it wasn’t for his fingers threading idly through her hair still, Diana would have thought he had fallen asleep.

She felt him press his lips to the crown of her head. “You awake?” he whispered into her hairline, as if on cue.

Diana smiled.

She brushed a kiss to his skin and lifted her head. “No.”

Even in the dark, with his features smudged by shadows, he was so handsome she found it hard to look away, her eyes moving over his features, taking in the details she wanted to capture and hold on to for as long as she could.

“Look.” Steve’s fingers danced along her bare shoulder. “It’s snowing.”

Diana turned around, following his gaze. Behind the wide window taking up most of the wall, large flakes were falling steadily, colouring the whole world white.

Too early, she thought absently as she pulled away from Steve and sat up, her back to him. It would be gone before morning without much of a trace. It was only October, after all. Yet, the first snowfall of the year always felt like a dream, like something out of a fairy tale. All these years in man’s world, and it mesmerized her still beyond anything she’d ever known.

Frustration would come later, Diana thought with the making of a smile working its way to her face. When she would have to deal with cars crashing on slippery roads and people trapped in storms and freezing slush on the ground seeping into her boots and leaving blisters on the soles of her feet. And yet, even that couldn’t take the magic out of the dance unfolding outside at this moment, taking her right back to when she saw it for the first time. The memory sealed in her mind for all of eternity. 

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, transfixed and nearly hypnotized, until she felt Steve trail his hand over her spine.

“Diana.”

She turned to him, her smile widening at the sight of his tousled hair.

“Where’d you go?” he asked.

Diana moved to him at once, nestling again into his side, her face tucked into the hollow of his neck. She breathed him in, the smell of soap and aftershave and Steve, certain that he was still watching the snow over her head, trying to see what it was that she had seen there moments ago.

“Still here,” she murmured, her fingers tracing slow patterns over his skin.

Steve caught her hand and kissed her fingertips.

“You know, I had my doubts about Chief’s idea,” he said after a while, “but I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer than I do right now.”

_ I don’t think I have ever been least capable of protecting anyone _ , Diana thought as her heart clenched fiercely in her chest, a trickle of cold down her spine making her shiver. 

She pulled her hand out of his grasp and touched the strap of the old-fashioned watch wrapped around his wrist, searching for something else to anchor her in this moment. Anything to take her mind off the familiar unease that her vulnerability seemed to invoke.

“This is an interesting watch,” she said quietly.

It looked clunky, a little awkward and not something she had seen in decades. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Steve without it, and it intrigued her greatly.

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, it’s not a Rolex, but…”

“But?” Diana prompted, brushing her thumb over the glass face.

“It was my father’s,” he said. “Went to hell and back with him, and… well, now it’s with me, and it’s still ticking.”

She shifted to have a better look at him, her eyes roaming over his features. “Hell?”

“Vietnam,” Steve explained, brushing her hair from her face.

She nodded as a shadow of anguish chased across his face, but didn’t press for more. This wasn’t something he’d mentioned before; nothing she had thought to ask, either.

It struck Diana, then, that she knew a million small things about him, little details and habits that Steve himself might not even be aware of. Like that he tapped his fingers against armrests and desks and occasionally his knee when he was impatient, and that he was more focused when he paced, or how, when he poured coffee for himself, he only filled two-thirds of the cup so he could finish it before it got cold. And yet, there was so much about him that remained entirely out of her reach. Things that mattered. Things that made his heart beat faster. Those he would carry in his soul for as long as he walked this Earth.

And the enormity of it was overwhelming.

“I suppose it was a date, after all,” Steve murmured with a smile, watching Diana watch him.

Hera help her, no one had ever looked at her the way he did. with so much devotion she didn’t know how his heart could contain it.

She brushed her thumb to his chin, failing to stifle a smile. “I suppose it was.”

_ …I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer than I do right now. _

His words resonated with a dull pang in the centre of her chest.

She wanted to ask him about his father. Wanted to tease him about quite indeed being above average – and watch that adorable flush creep up his cheeks the way it had at the bar. But the words didn’t come, his eyes – bright and full of affection – were making it hard for her not to want things she’d never known existed, too.

Diana rose on her elbow and pressed her mouth to his. She kissed him and kissed him until the gnawing in the pit of her stomach gave way to something hot and consuming and the touch of his hands and his voice whispering in her ear were all she could think of.

Until she stopped thinking altogether.

\---

Steve woke up in the empty room to the grey morning outside the window with his face pressed into the pillow.

With a groan, he rolled onto his back and scrubbed a tired hand over his face. His eyes felt like someone had poured a bucket of sand into them and rubbed it in for good measure. He wasn’t sure until what time he and Diana had stayed up, or what time it was right now, for that matter, but he wouldn’t have minded tucking her into the curve of his body and falling asleep for a few more hours. Or a couple of weeks.

Except Diana was no longer in bed with him. Or in the room even. He lifted his head and looked around, noticing his clothes hanging over the back of a chair – her doing, no doubt. The last time Steve checked, they had been strewn over the floor.

A slow smile crept onto his face, the memories from the night before washing all exhaustion right out of his body.

He pushed off the covers and climbed out of the bed, his hand reaching for his pants first, and then the shirt. His boots were nowhere to be found, but he figured that if he was lucky, he’d find Diana and maybe convince her to come back to bed again so the issue of shoes would be off the table altogether for a while. He could live with that.

Outside, all that was left of the blanket of snow he had glimpsed before they’d fallen asleep were some patches of white on the ground. They would be gone before noon.

Diana was in the kitchen, making Steve stop in his tracks. For a couple of moments, he watched her move about before he made his presence known.

She paused when she spotted him in the periphery of her vision and looked up.

“Steve.”

He felt a smile break across his face. Couldn’t help it, really.

“Morning,” he murmured, moving towards her.

Diana stepped away from him before Steve could reach for her, a gesture so subtle anyone else wouldn’t have made anything out of it. She turned towards the coffee maker sitting on the counter, busying herself with the buttons. Steve watched her reach for a second cup then, his brows pulling together ever so slightly when he noticed that her hands were shaking, just a little.

“There is coffee,” Diana said, her voice sounding off somehow, hollow and all wrong to his ears. It took him a moment to figure out that it lacked the mellowness he remembered from a few hours ago. “And if you’d like something to eat, I could--”

“What’s going on?” Steve interjected, clearly missing something but, try as he might, he couldn’t seem to see what it was.

Was he dreaming still? This picture was in such dissonance with everything that had happened between them the night before that it made his mind reel. Made him wonder if he’d imagined it all – the snow and Diana draped over his chest and the voices whispering in the dark. 

He moved to her, reaching for her arm and turning her towards him. “Diana.” A pause. “Look at me.”

She did, and the moment it happened, Steve wished she hadn’t. It felt like being slammed into a brick wall. He knew what she was going to say before she so much as opened her mouth.

“Last night… We shouldn’t have--” she started.

“Don’t. Don’t say that.”

Steve ducked his head closer to hers, his blood hammering fast in his temples, but she stepped back, his hand falling from her arm.

“You know I’m right, Steve,” Diana said quietly, and it was the sympathy in her voice that nearly undid him. Or was that pity?

He felt like she had slapped him. In fact, he would have preferred that she had done that. Maybe she’d knock him out and he wouldn’t have to come to terms with everything that she was saying. It would probably hurt a whole lot less, too.

Steve shook his head vigorously. “No, I don’t. What happened? Why are you saying this? Because the last thing I remember…”

“It’s better this way,” she stopped him.

For whom, he wanted to demand. Better how? Steve stared at her, unable to recognize her. Unable to measure the woman standing before him against the one who had slept in his arms. He could still feel her warmth against his skin, the comfort of her body pressed to his curve for curve. Yet there might have as well been an abyss between them now, so closed off and out of reach she felt.

He wanted to argue, wanted to demand answers and prove her wrong because he hadn’t imagined it all. He hadn’t, damn it! You don’t give yourself to someone as completely as she did only hours ago if it meant nothing. But there was finality in Diana’s eyes and decisiveness in her voice that he knew he couldn’t bend. Not even if there was nothing in the world he wanted more.

“I see.” He nodded, taking a step back from her, feeling a humourless smile touch his lips. That she had the nerve to offer him coffee – was that a thank you or a complimentary service? he wondered bitterly – was just the cherry on top of this spectacular moment. Steve scrubbed a hand over his face as he let out a shuddered breath. “A little heads up would’ve been nice,” he muttered.

“Steve.”

“Was this the plan all along?” he asked dryly, gesturing between the two of them. “Like, is this something you just do?”

Diana looked stricken, but his own boiling-hot anger made it impossible for him to keep his mouth shut. Or to feel remorse over his cruelty.

“Please, don’t,” she whispered. 

He held up his hand and dropped his gaze, unable to even look at her. “I should go.”

“I’ll take you home,” Diana said.

“I’ll get a cab,” he argued immediately.

Christ, that would teach him to drive himself places.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Well, that’s what I am. Absurd.” A sharp laugh bubbled up in Steve’s chest, the sound of it grating in the still air between them. “It’s only fitting.”

He turned around without waiting for her to respond and went looking for his goddamned shoes. So much for spending the rest of the day in bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like such an idiot.

They drove in silence. And the only reason Steve allowed her to take him back was because he didn’t want to argue with her. Didn’t want to talk to her, period.

So he didn’t.

Diana appeared to be fine with that, easily manoeuvring through the non-existent Sunday morning traffic while he stared out of his window, all too aware of her presence with every inch of his body. If he pressed himself into his own door even more, he’d probably tumble out of the car altogether, he thought sourly but didn’t move to get more comfortable.

“Was it something I did?” he asked when she pulled to a stop outside of his house, hating himself for feeling and sounding this pathetic and yet unable to stop himself. “Something I said?”

He heard Diana turn the key, killing the engine, thinking that he preferred the sound of it to this odd silence.

“No, Steve. No, of course not.”

Steve heard her sigh but didn’t dare look at her, staring at his lap instead.

“It wasn’t you, it was me,” Diana added after a moment. “I was the one who crossed the line… I’m sorry.”

Steve rubbed his eyes, feeling something shrivelling inside him. “Please, for the love of God don’t apologize.”

And here he was thinking that it couldn’t have gotten any worse. Go figure.

“I can’t keep you safe if I am intimately involved with you,” Diana spoke quietly. “I can’t protect you if my feelings cloud my judgement.”

This time he turned, meeting her eyes. “And what if I say that I don’t care for that?”

“I do.”

“Why?” he pressed. “Because it’s the job?”

Diana didn’t reply to that. Her lip caught between her teeth, she turned away and stared straight ahead instead. 

“Right,” he breathed, pushing the door open more forcefully than needed, desperate to escape before he made an even bigger fool of himself.

He slammed it for good measure, too, and then he walked away without looking back.

\---

There was comfort to the shape of the sword in her hand and the weight of the shield behind her back and the burn of the Lasso against her palm when Diana leaped through the night, her aim precise and the fight nearly effortless.

A bank robbery – failed, at that – was a good enough distraction to keep her mind off Steve for a while. They had put up a decent fight, too, which she welcomed. With her blood flowing faster and the jittery uncertainty that she couldn’t seem to shake off since Steve had disappeared this morning behind his door without so much of a parting glance in her direction, it was a relief to know that her inner turmoil meant nothing when it came to instinct and hundreds of years of training. Something to hold on to when her world was falling apart around her.

With a grunt, Diana surged forward, knocking a man with a gun on his back, her Lasso shooting upwards to bring down the one crouched on the upper-level gallery. He tumbled down with a surprised yelp, hitting the floor with a dull thud and a groan of pain.

This was easy. This was the mission that she had come into this world to fulfil – keep peace and protect the innocent. The path that was straight as it could be.

The cruel irony of her life was that she had no idea how to protect her own heart.

The last time Diana had allowed someone near her, they’d got hurt and she had been left feeling like something had cracked her right in the middle. Sometimes, she still felt like the jagged edges that she had managed to pull back together still didn’t quite fit. Not even after years of trying to find a way to heal. She could feel them crumbling the night before, with Steve’s arms around her and his lips dancing over her skin, her soul laying bare before him. And then again this morning, his look of hurt and confusion unbearable, grinding the soft parts inside her into dust.

She caught a faint sound of a police siren in the distance, growing louder with each passing moment.

Whoever had called them, Diana was grateful.

The man at her feet attempted to make a run for the shattered window, using her momentary distraction as his best chance to escape. She intercepted him easily, yanking him back and tying him back to back with his accomplice who growled and spat something unpleasant in her direction. Diana didn’t bother to listen.

She picked up her sword and slid it in the sheath behind her back.

This was easy, she told herself once more, watching the dance of red and blue against the walls and the floor and the jagged shards of broken glass, the wailing of a siren piercing her ears.

A long time ago, she used to think that the way to finding herself and understanding the workings of her soul laid on the battlefield. That the answers to her questions existed in the glory of victory.

She wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

That night when Diana cried in the shower, with hot water running down her body and her fist pressed against her mouth to muffle her sobs, for they were harrowing even to her own ears, she pretended that it was not Steve Trevor she was thinking of, her soul aching in places she never knew existed.

She fell asleep curled up on the couch, the idea of climbing back into bed they had shared only the night before unimaginable.

\---

Steve crossed out one line, and then another one, trying to rearrange the words on the page, but nothing seemed to fit the way it was supposed to. He tried once more, moving around the words that made perfect sense inside his head but that looked awkward and clunky when he wrote them down, something he couldn’t push through no matter how much he tried.

Frustrated, he balled up the sheet of paper and tossed it into a bin, missing it by about a foot.

He reached for his guitar, wondering if maybe it would make sense if he tried to add chords. Sometimes, it worked. Other times, he had to start all over again. It was worth a shot anyway.

A knock on the half-open door made him snap his head up, startling him and nearly making him topple out of his chair.

Diana stood in the doorway to his studio, looking impeccable and calm and so damn beautiful he could barely stand not to avert his gaze. His mind flashed momentarily back to the first time he had seen her, standing in the exact same spot, no less, looking like she was the sun shining through stormy clouds. It had been only two weeks, Steve thought absently. How could it possibly be only two weeks when he felt like it had been a whole lifetime?

“Steve,” she said softly.

He stood up slowly, his heart giving a dull thud against the inside of his ribs.

“Hey,” he murmured.

She hesitated for a moment, the small space of the studio feeling suffocating around them. He was certain she could feel it too. Like they were suddenly two magnets that couldn’t possibly come near one another, a force beyond their control pushing them apart.

“What’s up?” he asked when another moment passed without either of them saying a word, desperate to break this thick silence.

“You forgot this on the nightstand,” she said, and then she opened her palm.

Steve’s brows furrowed when he saw his father’s watch. One he didn’t even bother to check yesterday morning before he had left. The spark of hope that had flared up in his chest at the sight of her dying just as quickly.

She was not here to tell him that she had changed her mind, that she hadn’t meant what she’d said the day before.

“Thanks,” he muttered, taking the watch from Diana, careful not to touch her or look her in the eye again.

Without another word, he turned away from her and walked back to his desk. In the periphery of his vision, he watched Diana hover at the door for another moment before she turned around and left.

Steve slumped in his chair and dropped his head into his hands, pushing his fingers through his hair as he let out a weary breath.

He had spent the past 24 hours wishing for Diana to come back, wanting so badly to see her that it resonated with a dull ache somewhere inside him with every breath he took. But now that she was here, he wanted her to leave. The reality of being so close to her and not being allowed to touch her, to be anywhere near her somehow worse than not having her at all.

He had known it was going to be hard. He hadn’t thought it would be this excruciating.

Last night, Steve had spent hours twisting and turning in his bed that had somehow turned lumpy and uncomfortable over the course of only one day, and so big he had imagined he could land a helicopter on it and there would still be some space left. But despite how worn he had been, sleep hadn’t come. Each time he had checked his phone, praying for morning to finally come and spare him, it felt like time had stopped altogether, leaving him suspended in this limbo with no way out.

He had finally dragged himself out of bed when the sky began to turn grey outside his window, putting a few extra miles on a treadmill and then working the weights until he was drenched in sweat and his muscles quivered beneath his skin each time he moved. The shower seemed to have cleared his head some, and coffee had never tasted so good, but it had also put some things into perspective, too. Like having someone kick him to the curb would have been a whole lot easier to handle if they weren’t expected to show up at his house every day.

He didn’t suppose there were any rules for dealing with that. Not as far as he was aware.

Steve rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the sheets of barely coherent text spread before him. Harry was going to be  _ thrilled _ , he thought sourly.

He balled up another piece of paper and tossed it aside, not caring whether it reached the bin or not.

He spent the next two days avoiding Diana to the best of his ability.

He had Etta take care of his calls and allowed Chief to sort out the tour dates on his own. Steve didn’t have the heart to tell his manager that he really, truly and completely didn’t care, but he suspected that putting it into words was not necessary. The look that Chief gave him over the rims of his glasses spoke volumes.

“What’s going on with you, boss?” Sameer asked him at some point but gave up on trying to get a response.

Steve tried to work on the new song, tried to clear his mind and focus on something that had always helped, before. But every now and then, he would hear Diana’s voice talking to Etta or Charlie or Sammy, sounding no different than she ever had, before. And it would send his mind spiralling, making Steve wonder how exactly she had managed to move on so quickly when he was a mess that couldn’t even function properly half the time.

On Wednesday afternoon, when a string on one of his guitars had snapped and he was forced to go get a replacement because he needed the instrument to work for the show that night, he took extra time to pick one at the store and then have a chat with the clerk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Diana study the stand with records, her eyes darting towards the door every now and then, but otherwise, she appeared to be unbothered. Steve knew that she was not going to ask him to hurry up, but somehow, that quiet patience was all the more infuriating, setting his teeth on edge.

It made him want to act out, be bitter and petty, so much so that when the store clerk offered Steve her number, he took it even though he knew that he was not going to call. Which made him feel like a piece of shit as he slipped it into his pocket.

Truth be told, he didn’t even know what it was that he was mad at her for. Diana was right, and the rational part of him knew that. Their personal involvement was unprofessional and untimely. And if he was a bigger man, he would, perhaps—

No, screw that. Steve knew exactly why he was mad. Maybe at himself more than Diana, he could admit that much.

He was mad because he had meant what he’d said to her that morning when she had brought him home, after  _ that _ night – he didn’t care. He didn’t care for obsessive stalkers and work ethics and the voice of reason. None of that changed the fact that he wanted to be with her. He wanted to spend every night with her in his bed for as long as he lived. He wanted to wake up next to her and he wanted to be on the receiving end of her smiles. And it hurt to know that whatever she felt for him was not enough to make her not care for rules and appearances, either.

That night Steve played loudly and recklessly, until the pads of his fingers were numb to the point that he couldn’t even tell how he kept on going. He poured his heart into every word, desperate for the one person who meant the most to hear him and knowing that she didn’t. Throughout the entire show, he was acutely aware of Diana’s presence somewhere amongst the crowd, grateful for, perhaps, the first time in his life for the bright lights on stage that didn’t allow him to see anything or anyone beyond them. For once, he didn’t  _ want _ to see.

The rest of the night was a blur.

Steve remembered the laughter and bright flashes of cell phone cameras. Remembered smiling until his cheeks hurt and someone thrusting a pen into his hand to scribble some autographs on magazines and CDs. His mind buzzed, and even before he had set his foot off the stage after he had played the last chord, he just wanted this all to be over. But his mouth continued to move, responding to the words tossed at him. Another smile. Another flash of a camera. Another arm slung over him, voices too loud and invasive.

And then there was more music – not his, this time. And more people. And each time he would look over the crowd, his eyes would find Diana instantly as if he couldn’t see anyone else. And each time their gazes met, she would look away.

The next day Steve slept until noon and woke up feeling wrung out and hungover even though he had only had half a glass of beer at the afterparty, its taste stale on his tongue and the feeling of it uncomfortably heavy in his stomach. His throat hurt like it often did after a concert and he spent another hour lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, drained beyond anything he had ever experienced before, his mind numb.

He was an idiot. An idiot who was crazy about a woman who viewed him as a project to complete. And he had no idea how he was supposed to carry on like this.

  
To be continued 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll fix it, I promise :P 
> 
> Please feel free to share your thoughts :) Feedback is always much appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, thank you so much for all the love you're giving this story! I never thought I'd get this attached to this universe, yet here we are and your lovely comments and all the kudos warm my heart. 
> 
> Hope you're going to like this part :) A few of you asked me to please fix the mess between Steve and Diana, and I will... I swear, I will! But it might require baby steps :) Please forgive me for that!

A new message arrived early on Friday morning. An envelope signed by hand. It didn’t have a return address, but it did contain three photographs from the show the other night – Steve on the stage, different angles, colourful light sliding across his features.

_It’s like you were singing for me_, read one of the notes on the back, with a small heart drawn underneath.

Thinking of someone being there, in that crowd, so close to him and with more than appreciation for his work in mind, made Steve’s skin prickle uncomfortably. It made him slightly sick, truth be told.

Sameer stared at the photos with disgust. “Son of a…”

Steve picked up one. “This is not a bad angle,” he muttered under his breath and raised his eyes at Chief. “Think we can make it the next album cover?”

“Funny,” Chief muttered flatly.

It was different now, somehow, knowing what Steve knew, being keenly aware of the eyes on him whenever he went to a degree he found disconcerting. He tried to recall everyone he had seen that night, everyone he had talked to, but the faces had been nothing but a grey mass before him, his focus elsewhere. It could have been anyone. He could have looked that person in the face and seen right through them without a hint of understanding or recognition.

He glanced at Diana who was studying one of the pictures as if she was trying to figure out the angle from which it had been taken, her lips pursed together and two faint lines creasing the skin between her brows.

They had barely spoken in the past few days, her presence perpetual but the silences between them growing thicker and harder to break through the longer they went on. Yesterday, she had gone to the grocery store with him, and in that hour, they had exchanged three words exactly. Steve could barely stand it.

“Don’t kick yourself over this, Diana,” Sameer muttered, patting her briefly on the shoulder. “There were three hundred people with cameras there, it could have been any one of them.”

She didn’t appear convinced, or satisfied with his reassurance.

Steve could see the anger in the straight line of her shoulders, in her tautly set jaw. Anger mixed with helpless frustration over the missed chance to put an end to this once and for all. A feeling Steve understood all too well.

When she looked up, at last, her eyes meeting his across the room, Steve was the one to look away first.

True to their agreement, Chief called the police. What had felt like an innocent joke initially, albeit a mildly unsettling one, was turning into something truly disturbing. And the feeling felt amplified by the involvement of the authorities.

The two officers that came over to take Steve’s statement asked all the right questions and Steve gave them all the right answers, trying to be as thorough as he could. Yes, it was a fairly recent occurrence. No, he didn’t know who it might be. Yes, there were plenty of people who had his personal address. (He wasn’t Beyoncé, for crying out loud!) No, there were no threats, not outright – he wasn’t sure what to make of the incident with the car and chose to let them deal with it however they saw fit. He just wanted the whole thing to stop.

The police spoke with everyone present at the house, gathering roughly the same statement from each person. They walked around his place twice, although what for Steve wasn’t sure. Before they left, they collected all the photographs that he had received as evidence.

Steve didn’t argue, somewhat relieved to have gotten rid of them. Just knowing they were somewhere in the house had been starting to creep him out.

Truth be told, he didn’t know what the police could do about the whole thing short of arresting and running checks on everyone in a half-mile radius around him, but doing this, bringing them in, felt like doing _something_. And he was tired of doing nothing.

“Hey, what’s going on with you and Diana?” Sameer asked, appearing next to Steve when the door behind the policemen closed and their car purred to life outside.

Steve snapped his head up, his pulse tripping over itself for a moment.

“What? Why?” He peered at Sameer. “Did she say something?”

Sameer stared at him. “No. And I think she’d kick my ass if I start prying about her personal life. That’s why I’m asking you. Because you two are being weird.”

Steve hesitated. “No, nothing’s weird,” he said at last, shaking his head.

Sameer didn’t look like he believed him, but there was no way Steve could explain to him that the question here was not what was weird between him and Diana, but what wasn’t. Not that he wanted to discuss it, to be honest, but it would have helped if he at least knew an answer to that himself. If only for the sake of his own sanity.

He chose not to think about it.

It worked for exactly three days. Three days that he and Diana spent dancing around one another. He ignored her presence in the house every night, choosing to lock himself up in his studio until he knew that she had gone off to bed and picking his route around the place based on the sound of her voice and moving in the opposite direction if it was possible. Half of him was convinced that she was doing the same thing for their paths rarely crossed unless they meant them to.

Diana ignored their silence in the car when they drove somewhere, and while Steve would chance an occasional glance at her every now and then, he was certain that she preferred to pretend that he was not there at all. He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed by that. Both, perhaps.

It felt like having a ghost in his life, someone who haunted his thoughts every waking moment but who Steve worked to avoid to keep the past where it belonged – in the past.

Maybe if he pretended hard enough that nothing had happened, he would learn to believe it.

Sometimes, it worked. Other times, his longing for her was almost too much to bear.

How he had managed to fall so hard for her in such short a time remained a mystery even to him, but on a Tuesday afternoon the following week, Steve realized that he couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t, and didn’t have to.

He found Diana in the kitchen where she was doing a puzzle with Charlie, the two of them talking quietly and giggling, her smile directed at the boy sending a sharp jolt of tenderness through Steve. So much so that he even paused in his tracks, watching them for a few moments, not at all convinced all of a sudden that he was making the right decision. She was just doing her job, he reminded himself. The purpose of her existence was _not_ to torment him. 

It didn’t help.

Still, he was about to step back and retreat upstairs when Diana looked up and spotted him, and then Charlie glanced away from the puzzle and turned to Steve as well.

“Hey, what’s up champ?” Steve moved towards them. He ruffled Charlie’s hair affectionately. “Do you mind if Diana and I have a word?”

The boy shook his head as Diana stood up.

“I’ll be back, don’t finish it all without me,” she said, dropping her voice conspiratorially, and rubbed Charlie’s shoulder briefly before she followed Steve to the hallway. “Do you need to go somewhere?” she asked. “Let me just get--”

“No,” he stopped her when she made a move to grab her jacket. “No, I—I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh.” Diana paused, watching him. “Of course.”

“You know, I was thinking…” Steve started and faltered, his heart slamming against the inside of his chest with those hollow thuds that made the world swim around him a bit. He took a breath and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “About this whole situation, the photographs… And the thing is, I’m really grateful for everything that you’ve done for me so far, but, uh… the police are involved with this case now, and I just think…”

“You want me to leave,” she said when he stumbled.

It was not a question. Still, her words caught Steve off-guard although they probably shouldn’t have. Truth be told, nothing about her should have surprised him anymore. And yet, she continued to constantly set him off balance, the shocks never-ending. 

He forced himself to hold her gaze.

“I think it will be better that way,” he said quietly.

She didn’t argue even though he was convinced she would, and part of him was grateful. Steve knew that if she had, she would give him every reason he’d need to let her stay. And that she would be within her right to call him out on the stupidity of his decision, at that. But he wished she had, too. If only because he wanted her to prove him wrong one last time and make him believe that he meant something to her. Something _more_ than a task and a paycheck.

Diana gave him a small nod instead. “Perhaps, you’re right.”

And there it was again, the same finality that he had felt in her kitchen that morning a little more than a week ago, the proverbial void between them growing wider with each passing moment.

“No offence, boss, but I think you’re an idiot,” Sameer told Steve later that day, after Diana was gone, shaking his head with so much disappointment that Steve winced, barely able to take it.

Well, this wasn’t anything Steve didn’t already know.

“What would you say if you wanted to offend me?” he asked, but his attempt at making a joke fell flat, hanging awkwardly between them for a few moments.

Sameer sighed. “You probably don’t want to know.”

\---

It was easier without her. And a million times harder, too.

The investigation stalled, as Steve knew it would. The prints on the envelopes and the photos belonged to Chief, Sameer, Etta, Diana, and himself. That didn’t come as a surprise. The police tracked the car to a rental company - which Steve had already known from Diana – and the thread ended there. It turned out that someone had stolen the registration plates from their lot one night.

Under other circumstances, Steve would have found the whole thing funny, or at the very least, entertaining enough. Right now, however, it mainly felt draining.

He hadn’t heard from Diana and refused to ask Chief, the childish petulance that made Steve feel small and petty and downright ridiculous rearing its ugly head in the face of his dejection. He didn’t know how much he wanted her to ignore his request and simply return the next day as if nothing happened until she didn’t. Until another week went by and he almost managed to convince himself that she had never been there at all, her presence in the house fading day by day until there was nothing left of it.

Save for five tubs of ice-cream in the freezer. (Steve’s doing that even he could admit he had gone a little overboard with.)

With the others, it was not like they skirted around the issue – Etta still nagged him with that tenacity of hers that Steve found comforting now, Chief pestered him relentlessly about the dates and shows and contracts that he needed to look at and sign, and Sameer’s presence was more persistent than ever. No walking on eggshells around him, that Steve could tell.

But it didn’t go past him that none of them had mentioned Diana’s name once. It was not like they were ignoring her, which would have felt proactive. It was like they were acting like she had never existed, and Steve didn’t know what to make of that.

He worked long hours and kept busy, and pretended that each time he pulled out his phone was nothing but a habit born out of living in the world that revolved around being glued to the damned thing as if their lives depended on it. There were no messages from her, and every time he allowed himself to find Diana’s number on his contact list, his thumb hovering over it for a moment or two, he would simply put the phone away.

It was better this way, Steve would tell himself for the umpteenth time as he signed off on some press release for Sameer or confirmed the proposed tour dates for Chief, and each time, it would sound more and more like bullshit.

\---

“Call me if you need anything,” Diana had said before she had walked out of Steve Trevor’s house nearly two weeks ago.

He had nodded then, and offered her a small shrug. And Diana had known at that moment, based on the look on Steve’s face and his inability to hold her gaze, that he would rather gnaw his hand off than dial her number. Not even in the face of death, if he could help it.

Steve’s decision hadn’t surprised her as much as the time it had taken him to ask her to leave. Had she been in his position, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have done it sooner, what with the weight of unsaid words hanging between them and the feelings that were there but had no right to be. He was hurt and confused, and he couldn’t see her reasoning, which, Diana assumed, appeared more cruel than considerate on the outside.

His request stung more than she was willing to let on, but she couldn’t blame him. Not for wanting to find the peace of mind that neither of them could obtain without putting some space between them.

However, Diana had promised to Chief to keep an eye on him and she abode by it, albeit keeping her distance this time. She would hover in the shadows outside the house, keeping watch as best she could. Sometimes, the lights would still be on as late as 4 in the morning, and she would wonder whether Steve simply forgot to turn them off, too tired to care, or if his sleep was as elusive as hers, these days.

She never dared to go close enough to find out.

\---

Steve called a week later, Diana’s phone coming to life close to two in the morning and making her heart trip over itself when she saw his name on the screen.

She had just returned from dealing with some trouble in the neighbourhood. Her hair was still wet from the shower and the marks of the fight had yet to fade from her body, her muscles pleasantly loose after the hot water.

She picked up on the third ring, the phone nearly slipping from her trembling fingers.

“Steve,” she answered, surprised.

Part of her wondered if he’d dialled her number by mistake.

“_Hey_.” His voice sounded muffled, as if he was holding his phone too far from his face. “_Um, I’m sorry to call so late, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know if you were asleep_.” She could hear some vague noise on this end as well. Voices. Music that would fade in and out as if someone was turning it on and off every now and then. “_I should have called Sammy, but I… I guess I wanted it to be you_.”

Diana froze, her fingers curling tight around the phone and her stomach growing cold in an instant. “What happened?”

“_Nothing. Nothing, I just_…” More noise. At last, a door slammed, and then silence. She heard Steve let out a long breath; could see him rub his eyes, in her mind. “_I had a few drinks and… ah, my car is here, but I don’t think I can--_”

“Where are you?” Diana stopped him, already pulling a clean shirt out of the drawer and reaching for a pair of jeans. He gave her the address obediently, and she breathed a small sigh of relief. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right over.”

He was slumped against a wall when she pulled up at one of the bars downtown, a lone figure under blinking neon lights. And then, as if on cue, the door next to him burst open, spilling half a dozen laughing people onto the sidewalk, their voices breaking the silence of the night and cutting him from her line of sight for a moment as they walked by, ignoring Steve entirely.

For a moment, after they were gone, the noise fading in the distance, he just stood there as if he couldn’t quite believe that she had come. Diana’s heart clenched, torn between tenderness towards his raw vulnerability that he was either too tired or too intoxicated to hide, and the relief over finding him unharmed. She’d be lying if she didn’t admit that the second she had seen his name pop up, her mind had gone straight to the unthinkable.

Phones rarely rang in the middle of the night for a good reason.

And now, the consolation of being proven wrong was suddenly all-consuming.

At last, Steve peeled off the wall and stepped towards her car, slumping heavily into the passenger seat – and bringing the smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol with him. Yet, when their eyes met, his were bright and sharp and focused. The chill of the night must have cleared his head some.

“Thanks,” Steve murmured and cleared his throat.

Diana nodded and pulled away from the curb while he fumbled with the seatbelt. A mere minute after he’d gotten in the car, the sky opened up and it started to pour, frigid rain that was only a degree or two away from turning into snow.

“What happened?” Diana asked after another block was spent in silence interrupted only by the swishing sound of the wipers on the windshield.

Steve scrubbed a weary hand down his face and winced. “I guess I wanted to do something stupid,” he offered, shrugging a little.

“I can see that,” Diana hummed. She darted a sideways glance at him. “Did beer do this?”

There was a cut above his left brow and a few drops of caked blood in the corner of his mouth and what looked like a black eye in the making – she’d need to see it in a proper light before she knew how bad it was going to be by morning. It didn’t look life-threatening, but if she had to guess, it wasn’t pleasant, either.

Steve flinched. “I believe his name was Jeff.” He touched his jaw gingerly, working it from side to side for a moment or two to check if there was any damage done to it. “Not sure I caught it right, though. Do you wanna go back and find out?”

For a moment his lips twitched with amusement, but it clearly hurt so he settled on a sour grimace instead.

Diana only shook her head, more in disbelief than anything at this point, her heartbeat still struggling to find a steady rhythm.

They stayed quiet after that, allowing the white noise of the falling rain and the murmur of the tires on wet asphalt to fill the space between them.

Once at his house, Diana made Steve drink a glass of water. And then another one to wash down two pills of ibuprofen to help with the possible hangover and the definite aftermath of everything else. He didn’t argue – she suspected her expression didn’t invite him to do that as she bit back a few words ready to slip out of her mouth. Once her worry had settled, frustration took over. Annoyance over his recklessness that threatened to spill over the brim. He could have been hurt, really hurt, and she couldn’t stand the thought of it.

Eventually, Steve ended up perched on one of the tall stools with the first aid kit fetched from the bathroom sitting on the counter and Diana’s hands working on cleaning up his cuts.

(She suspected that alone, he wouldn’t have bothered.)

“Do you want to tell me how this happened?” she asked, dousing a cotton ball with antiseptic and touching it lightly to the cut above his brow.

Steve hissed through clenched teeth and tried to flinch away from her. Diana caught his chin with her other hand to hold his face in place, her eyes meeting his briefly. He went still, watching her watch him for a few moments before she turned her attention back to the task at hand.

“I’m not really sure, actually,” he admitted after a moment, squirming a little in his seat in an attempt to move away from the discomfort of her manipulations, albeit to no avail. “We were talking and then…” he made a vague gesture with his hand. “You know how it is.”

Diana raised an eyebrow and swallowed her smile. “I don’t believe I do.”

Steve blinked. “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you, for coming over. I shouldn’t have--”

“I’m glad you did,” she said softly, her gaze finding his once more.

He watched her toss the cotton ball into the trash before she picked up another one, touching it to the corner of his mouth, careful not to hurt him more than she had to. Steve tensed anyway, but there was nothing Diana could do about that. It would be worse, in the end, if they left the cuts untreated. (She didn’t feel like pointing out that he had brought this on himself, even though part of her wanted to.) 

“Is it bad?” Steve asked when she reached for the ointment, smearing it gently over every nick she could find. “It feels… awful, to be honest.” 

“Well… the good news is, you don’t need stitches,” she said. He didn’t look convinced by her definition of _good news_. Diana smiled at the dismay that chased across his features. “But Sameer will not be happy.”

Steve chuckled, a sound that morphed into a groan when his lips curved.

“Goddammit,” he muttered with a grimace. “I could tell him you did this,” he offered, his face lighting up. Had it not been nearly three in the morning and had he not been beaten up a few hours ago, Diana might have even found the idea amusing. “He would actually be impressed then,” Steve added, as though it somehow was a selling point of his pitch. “You know how he is, with you.”

Diana hummed noncommittally and pulled the first aid kit closer, rummaging inside as she looked for a band-aid. There was nothing she could do for that soon-to-be black eye that a bag of frozen peas couldn’t do better, she decided. She gave her work a critical look after she affixed the beige band-aid over his brow, her fingers moving lightly over the planes of his face to check for anything she had missed.

“Diana,” Steve called her softly.

Her hands froze on his cheeks.

She lifted her eyes to his, Steve’s gaze that was searching hers bordering on frantic.

“This whole thing… it scares me,” he said, one of his hands curling around her wrist. “It scares me, and I hate it, Diana. I went there tonight because I was sick of being afraid. I was sick of looking over my shoulder and living my days waiting for the other shoe to drop. For another car to round a corner and--”

He cut off and she watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he fought to find words.

“I was tired of feeling like I was being watched and I was tired of being trapped here because some sick asshole out there can’t tell their fantasies apart from real life. And it worked, for about half-hour. And then that guy came along and I saw it. I saw how easy it would have been for anyone to do anything to me and I wouldn’t even notice.”

Diana’s mouth went dry.

“Steve…”

“I’m sorry. For what I said, earlier. For… everything,” he added urgently, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I never expected anything from you… as far as that night is concerned. Not a single thing that you were not willing to give, I need you to know that.”

He swallowed, hard, and she was not sure whether it was the late hour or the remnants of alcohol coursing through his system, or the combination of both, or maybe something else, but there was so much despair in his eyes it hurt to look. He lifted his hand to run this thumb along her jaw but remembered himself and dropped it, leaving her missing his touch instantly.

Still, he made no attempt to pull away from her, and neither did she.

“But this… this is not about us. I want you to come back and help me because I don’t know how to do this without you. If you’re willing.” Steve fell silent for a second, his head bowed as if in search of forgiveness and redemption, and then added, quietly, “Please.”

Diana nodded, feeling something warm that didn’t have a name yet unfurl in her chest.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said softly, her palms still cupped over his face. 

“Will you? Come back, I mean.”

She nodded again. “Yes.”

Steve nodded, too.

“Can you stay here tonight?” he asked. She watched the tops of his cheeks flush. “Not like—not like that, I didn’t mean it like…” he trailed off when a small smile touched her lips.

“I will.”

She would have stayed even if he didn’t ask, she knew. But she didn’t say it.

“Thank you,” Steve said, quietly.

Diana wondered if he knew how much he had scared her tonight, if he could feel the hammering of her heartbeat at the pulse point in her wrist beneath his fingertips. The one time when she hadn’t been around was the one time he’d ended up needing her, the guilt over it heavy behind her breastbone.

She thought he was going to add something else. Thought he was going to kiss her. They were so close she could feel his breath on her lips and see every shade of blue in his eyes.

But then he was pulling away and sliding off the stool. He looked sheepish now, almost shy in a way she wasn’t used to seeing, which made her chest grow tight with affection.

“I guess I should…” Steve began.

“You should get some rest,” Diana offered, gently.

A weary smile touched the corners of his lips as he pushed his hand through his hair. “Yeah, that wouldn’t hurt… any more than everything already does.”

She smiled, unable to contain it. “Do you… need any help?”

“Getting undressed?” he clarified. “I think we already tried that, and look how it worked out.”

There was a touch of wistfulness to his voice, but his eyes sparked with humour when they caught hers, and the tension that had started to build in the pit of Diana’s stomach dissolved into nothing.

She smiled, rolling her eyes a little, watching him relax as well.

“Good night, Steve.”

It was odd to have to tread around one another like that, like they were walking on thin ice. One wrong step, and you would drown in the frigid water, trapped beneath the surface. She despised the feeling, particularly now when she knew what openness with him felt like.

She yearned for it more than she thought she would, the cold emptiness that he had left behind in the pit of her stomach unbearable.

Diana went to check on him an hour later.

She found Steve sprawled on his stomach across his bed, his arm tucked under the pillow and his breathing deep and even. The reading lamp was still on, his features smoothed out and relaxed in the dim light, making him look younger and less guarded than he ever allowed himself to be the rest of the time.

He had kicked off his shoes and tossed his jacket onto the chair, but had stopped there, apparently. Diana pulled the comforter over him and then crouched next to the bed, taking in the bruises that would come to full bloom by morning and the raw skin around the cuts that looked red and tender. She hoped they wouldn’t bother him too much as he slept. There was a shadow of stubble coating his cheeks and his lips were parted ever so slightly.

On impulse, she reached over, sweeping her hand through his hair, her fingers itching to touch him, to reassure herself that he was alright. She didn’t fight the tenderness that seemed to have taken up the space around her heart, or the feeling of trepidation that came with it. Lately, she was starting to realize that one couldn’t exist without the other, not for her.

Steve’s lashes fluttered as he blinked his eyes open, his gaze finding hers.

“Angel,” he murmured in a barely audible whisper, making Diana smile.

Truth be told, she wasn’t sure if he was even awake.

As it was, Diana leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his brow, feeling him grow still beneath her touch.

“Sleep,” she breathed into his skin. She stroked his hair once more before she stood up at last and walked quietly out of the room, closing the door behind her.

She left the light on, just in case.

\---

To say that Sameer was mortified would have been an understatement.

“What were you thinking, Steve?” he asked half a dozen times, distraught, as he ran his hand through his hair over and over again until it was sticking out in all directions.

You’d think he was the one who’d got thrown around a bar.

Steve chose not to say that and let Sameer berate him in peace for as long as he pleased. Chose to keep his smile to himself as well.

“How am I supposed to sell your face when your face looks like that?” Sameer demanded, giving Steve’s features a wide swipe of his hand.

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. (It hurt but it was worth it.) “How about you sell something else?” he offered, having to put effort into maintaining a straight face. “Like, I don’t know, my music?”

“Who’s gonna buy that?” Sammy muttered darkly, shaking his head in dismay.

“Thanks, man.”

Sameer scowled. “This is no joke, Steve. We have a photoshoot, an interview…” he trailed off with a groan. “The _photoshoot_.” His head snapped up. “What were you _thinking_?”

It went on for a while.

Steve decided not to mention his own discomfort – eating hurt, and drinking hurt just as much. And laughing, especially, was particularly unpleasant, as was just about every facial expression. That morning, when he’d woken up and surveyed the damage, he had also discovered that he had apparently taken a few jabs to his ribs as well, a smattering of bruises running down the right side of his body. Something he couldn’t quite remember, but there was no surprise there.

He knew he was not likely to get any sympathy from Sammy, though. Not as long as his professional image was concerned.

Charlie, on the other hand, thought it was cool, but Etta, who had scolded the boy for his enthusiasm, did not share that sentiment. Chief wisely refrained from commenting, only cocking an eyebrow in a silent disapproval, which somehow felt worse than outright judgement.

“I hope you have a good cover story for this,” Sameer pointed an accusatory finger at Steve’s chest.

At some point during one of Sameer’s tirades, Steve caught a glimpse of Diana as she passed by the studio door that stood wide open. He saw a glint of amusement in her eyes, her lips pressed together as she tried not to smile, undoubtedly entertained by the whole affair.

(Steve suspected that there was little hope for any sympathy from her, either.)

For a moment, he had allowed himself to believe that she had come to rescue him from Sameer’s wrath, but then she was gone with a small shake of her head, as if saying, _You’ve got only yourself to blame here_. Steve let out a resigned sigh. He knew he deserved the fire he was under right now. Might as well let them all enjoy the show while Sammy was at it.

If anyone was surprised by Diana’s sudden reappearance, they chose to keep their thoughts on the matter to themselves. Steve might have heard Etta mutter something under her breath about him coming to his senses, but that, realistically, could have been said about any number of things. He chose not to clarify what she’d meant, for the sake of his sanity, if nothing else. And aside from that, they continued to carry on as if nothing had happened.

Steve would have almost believed that nothing had, if it wasn’t for a small smile on Chief’s face when he had walked through the door that first morning. And the subtle sigh of relief from Sameer that would have been easy to attribute to something else had Steve not known better. And an overall sense of peace that seemed to have settled over them all.

As for him and Diana, he decided to count her return as a truce. It was not always easy, and it felt shaky and unconvincing at times, and there still were silences that hung between them, thick and heavy. But she was there, and it was better than not having her at all.

Steve felt safer with her, less jittery – at least not for the same reasons as when he was on his own. This time around, he followed her instructions to the letter and he allowed her to take over without getting in her way, trusting her to do her thing as she saw fit. He didn’t question her decisions and he buried the need to reach for her hand that would come at the oddest of times or to tell her that he was – _quite possible, very likely_ – in love with her so deeply that no one would know where to look for it even if they tried.

In the two weeks that followed, Steve was awoken three times by the lights turning on in the backyard when the motion sensors were triggered. Each time, he got out of the bed with his heart lodged in his throat and a trickle of sweat running down his spine, bracing himself for an attack, his pulse hammering so fast he couldn’t hear himself think. Each time, it turned out that the cameras had caught an animal crossing his yard – a spooked neighbour’s cat and a pair of raccoons who looked more freaked out by the lights than Steve felt.

(Twice, Diana was there, biting her lip around a smile as they watched the chubby raccoon dash for the safety of the bushes, as far away from the light as it could get.)

By the time the morning of Steve’s last show of the year in Boston rolled around, and having heard nothing from the police – he’d tried to get an update but there was no progress, the evidence not sufficient enough to offer them a direction to follow, and so on, and so forth – he had managed to half-convince himself that he had imagined it all. That, or the person had given up.

Hence his surprise when Etta walked into the kitchen where he was finishing his toast and Diana was having coffee, a plain envelope in her hand. One that made Steve’s stomach twist enough for him to lose his appetite instantly.

Etta’s eyes darted in his direction, her face grim, before she handed the envelope to Diana.

“I believe this one is for you.”

Frowning, Diana set her mug down and took the proffered item, pulling a picture out of it.

Abandoning the idea of finishing his breakfast, Steve moved around the counter to peer at the photograph over her shoulder. It was of the two of them in the city, either stepping out of the car or getting in – half in and half out of their respective doors. Steve’s eyes were on Diana, as they often were these days while Diana was looking straight ahead, the angle of her jaw and the sharpness of her gaze speaking of focus – or it would have, he assumed, if her face wasn’t crudely and angrily scratched out, a sloppy cross marking half of her head.

With no landmarks in the frame, it looked like it could have been taken anywhere in downtown, on any day they had ventured further than his neighbourhood.

But it was the message on the back that made his hackles stand on end, turning his fury into something hot and burning in the centre of his chest.

The word _BITCH!!!_ was written in the middle, in capital letters followed by three exclamation marks and underlined twice – as if someone could have missed it or ignored it if it wasn’t accentuated enough.

A curse rose from Steve’s throat. He pushed his hand through his hair, having to physically stop himself from snatching the damned picture from Diana’s fingers and ripping it in a hundred pieces. A thousand, if he could manage it. Its very presence felt like an insult and he wanted to eradicate it from this world, erase it from existence.

“It’s the evidence,” Diana said as she glanced at him, as if reading his thoughts.

Steve turned to Etta. “Could you please call--”

She beat him to it. “Already called. They are on their way.”

“Hey, what’s with the glum faces?” Sameer’s voice made the three of them turn. He walked into the kitchen, a box of donuts in hand, his cheeks flushed from the cold. He paused, halfway into unwrapping his scarf from around his neck. “What?” he asked with alarm when he took in their expressions. “What happened?”

\---

Later - after Steve had filled Chief and Sameer in; after Etta had made the tea for the police that they had ignored; after the officers Steve had spoken with before had asked the same questions again and then finally left; after it had started to snow once more as Etta took the tray back to the kitchen – Diana spoke: “They are going to come for you tonight.”

Her voice plunged the living room into silence.

Steve looked up at her from where he was sitting on the couch, his elbows propped on his knees.

She was watching him in that odd way that made him feel like they were the only people in the room, her gaze boring into him with the intensity of a sledgehammer. He didn’t know what to make of that slight edge in her voice, save for the fact that it made his heart twitch uncomfortably.

“Why tonight?” Steve found himself asking even though there were two things he was suddenly aware of – that she was right, and that deep inside, he already knew it.

“Because you are planning to leave in two weeks,” Diana replied, her eyes never leaving his. “They might not be able to follow you again, not without arising suspicion now that the police are involved.” She paused. “Because there will be thousands of people there tonight, making it easy for them to slip past the security no matter how tight it is—"

“You should cancel,” Sameer offered immediately, his voice hitching a notch.

“—Because they are getting angry, and angry people are rash,” she continued as if not hearing Sameer. “But most importantly, because if they do wish you harm, Steve, this is the best chance they’ve got and they won’t miss an opportunity to act on it.”

Steve was shaking his head.

“You know I’m right,” Diana insisted.

“I do,” Steve agreed. “All I’m saying is that I’m not cancelling anything.”

“Are you insane?”

The question came from Sameer who was staring at Steve as if Steve had suddenly grown a second head.

“He’s right, Steve,” Chief spoke, that measured tone of his somehow drawing more attention than Sameer’s unmasked indignation. “It’s a risk, and a big one.” His gaze shot towards Diana for a moment. “There will be other shows.”

“It’s not about the show,” Steve said decisively. “It’s about putting an end to this—this bullshit.” He stood up, restless and antsy and pushed his hand through his hair. “I’m sick of it. I’m sick of living some mock-up decoy life. They want to come at me, great. Let them.”

“Do you not remember what happened with the car, boss?” Sammy pressed.

“I do remember it,” Steve snapped, his jaw clenching as he tried to stop himself from raising his voice. “I do, and you know how? Because I was there.”

“You should cancel,” Diana agreed.

She was standing across the room from him, her back rigid.

And everything about her made him bristle. Her quiet composure, the even tone of her voice, the way she always so reasonable when everything inside of Steve yearned to rebel against reason.

“And then what?” he demanded. “What’s going to happen tomorrow? Will I need to cancel the rest of my life, too, and just hide away until some moron decides that they are bored and need a different hobby?” He was shaking his head angrily. “And what about two weeks from now, Diana? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about our arrangement here, but are you coming with me on a tour? Are you coming to Nashville? To Chicago? To Dublin? I hear Dublin’s great. Maybe a little cold this time of year but still worth it.”

He stopped, disgusted with the bitterness dripping from every word that came out of his mouth.

It was not her fault this was happening. It was not her fault some idiot didn’t have better things to do than play games with Steve’s life as if he was a marionette on strings. And it was definitely not Diana’s fault that he couldn’t help feeling helpless and trapped, and that someone calling her a bitch for merely being there for him was his tipping point, apparently.

He huffed out a breath and scrubbed a hand down his face, ashamed of his outburst.

“Just this once--” Sameer tried again before Steve had a chance to mutter his apology.

“No,” Steve interjected.

“Steve,” Chief spoke.

“No,” Steve repeated forcefully, giving his friend a hard look. One that made Chief clamp his mouth shut even though it didn’t stop his lips from pursing in displeasure. Steve’s eyes darted towards Diana. “This ends tonight.”

He only wished he knew how.

To be continued 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wish I could stay with this story longer, I do, but... The next and final chapter will be posted on Friday/Saturday (depending on your timezone) and I can't say I'm ready. 
> 
> In the meantime, please share your thoughts and opinions on this one! Feedback is always much appreciated!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let's do this one last time... Are you guys ready? Because I'm not... I'm going to miss this story. But, as the wise Tony Stark had said, "Part of the journey is the end," and that is especially true in storytelling. 
> 
> Anyway, go! Have fun! (Shed a couple of tears :P)

Despite the heat in Steve’s eyes and the firmness of his declarations when they had spoken earlier that afternoon, Diana hadn’t thought that he was going to go through with his night as planned. At the time, she could see frustration coursing beneath his skin and hear the helpless fury that made his voice rise, both justified and understandable, and something that none of them had the right to ignore.

She thought that he was right, too. Right in his choice to take the matter into his own hands and not allow himself to stay in the shadows and be hunted like an animal. Diana had experienced that, before; had felt that more times than she could count. They were all within their right to choose their paths rather than being steered in the direction that suited someone else.

But that was the warrior in her talking. One who had charged into battles without hesitation even when the odds had been against her, never bowing down in defeat. One who knew her own strengths and the cost of every single one of her victories.

On another level – a personal level, a human level – Diana hated his idea with her whole being. And hated even more that it was not up to her to get him to change his mind.

She found Steve backstage at some point, shortly before the show. He was talking about something with one of the sound men who worked at the venue where his show was to take place, going once again through the last-minute adjustments and checks.

He spotted her over the man’s shoulder, faltering momentarily before he wrapped up the conversation. With a quick glance in her direction and a curt nod at Steve, the man walked away, disappearing behind one of the million curtains that had turned the area into a maze.

“You think I’m making a mistake,” Steve said as he approached Diana.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said quietly, her eyes searching his but the lights in that area were dimmed and sparsely placed, and each time someone brushed against one of the curtains, a shadow would fall over his face, making it hard to read him.

Steve met her gaze. “Yes, it does.”

“You are making yourself bait,” Diana noted, pushing back the unease sitting in her chest like a stone.

His lips twisted humourlessly. He shook his head. “It’s funny ‘cause today is the first time in a while that I don’t feel like it.” He paused, raking his fingers through his hair. “After all those weeks… I can’t keep doing that. Because there will always be tomorrow, and then another day, and another one of waiting for something to happen… How long can I keep running away? I’m not a coward, Diana.”

“It’s not cowardice to not seek out the fight. It’s not cowardice to choose to be safe.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You mean, to hide?”

“I mean not to invite trouble when it can be avoided,” Diana corrected him.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Steve rubbed the back of his neck, both of them stepping out of the way when a man with a trolley pushed a load of equipment past them. “Look, I know this is not how it was supposed to play out. It’s not how I imagined it would end, either,” he confessed, softly. “But this is how it’s going to work tonight. I’m going to go on that stage and do what I do best. And I’m not going to worry about anything else because I’ve got you.”

The way he made it sound – his plan so effortless and simple – made everything inside of her ache, the need to believe him overwhelming.

Still, Diana wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that it was not cowardly to not risk his life. That there was nothing heroic or noble in putting yourself in the line of fire.

But this was not about her. Or the show. Not even about the people gathering outside, the rising murmur of their voices growing louder with each passing minute. To Steve, this was not about his ego or trying to prove something to himself or to her. There was fear in his eyes that she knew was mirrored in her own, even though she was better at hiding it, perhaps. She hoped she was. This was about reclaiming his life and not bending to the will of someone who had no right to dictate their rules to him. She understood that, better than he would ever know.

Knowing that didn’t stop her from wanting to shield him from the world, though. To lock him in a glass box and keep him safe until this was over, the intensity of that instinct making Diana’s heart leap in his chest.

She knew that was not possible, however. Never had been, the very idea leaving her feeling deeply ashamed. He would despise her if she tried to take over, to make his decisions for him, and truth be told, if their places were reversed, she would despise him for doing the same thing to her, too.

Diana took a steadying breath. She nodded as she squared her shoulders, standing a little taller.

A corner of Steve’s mouth lifted, revealing that smile that never failed to knock all air out of her lungs. “And it will be okay.”

He was standing so close now she could feel the warmth of his body, could smell that oil he used to polish his guitars on him and a faint scent on his shampoo. It would have been so easy to reach for him and card her fingers through his hair like she’d done before. To wrap her arms around him and kiss him the way she’d wanted to kiss him that morning when she had awoken in his arms but had never got a chance to. To make him promise her a thousand times that he would not leave a gaping hole in her soul. And then to promise him that she would never let anything happen to him.

She did none of those things.

Instead, she watched him walk away, heading towards the entrance to the stage. Listened to the crowd erupt on the other side when he disappeared out of her sight, the roar of excitement and the explosion of applause made her feel like she was drowning.

Diana took a breath and willed her heartbeat to slow down.

And then she moved in the opposite direction.

Fifteen minutes later, when the first bullet ricocheted off her gauntlet, sending a burst of sparks into the air, she was grateful she’d thought to armour up for the occasion.

\---

Steve had done some remarkably reckless things in his life. He’d raced on a motorcycle without a helmet, just because. In college, he had tried to win a “who could drink a gallon of tequila” competition – it hadn’t gone well, and he couldn’t even stand the smell of tequila ever since. He’d gone bungee-jumping on a bet and had slept in his car in sub-zero temperatures, nearly turning into an icicle by morning because he hadn’t had the cash for even the cheapest motel at the time.

Looking back, he could say that any of those things could have been a pretty impressive way to die. Stupid, yes, but impressive, nonetheless.

He didn’t know where on this spectrum his current plan fell, exactly. One that was hinged entirely on his blind faith in a woman who had promised to protect him, and his trust in her ability to keep her word. Probably somewhere in the middle, he had figured as he’d first stepped out under the bright lights falling on the stage from all around him. Just reckless enough to add a touch of thrill to the experience, but not entirely unthought-through, mostly.

He wasn’t sure what he expected from it, either, if he was being completely honest.

What he didn’t see coming was how trivial his demise was going to be. Insultingly so, even.

Steve saw a barrel of a gun aimed at his chest, black and shiny in the lights flooding the area around him. And even though it probably wasn’t even a regular-sized gun, this one compact enough that it could fit in a small purse, it looked to him like one of those old war cannons he had seen in a museum a few times. At least half a foot in diameter and growing wider with each passing moment.

The screams came next, from everywhere around him. And then a flash of lightning –  _ a flash of lightning _ ? – sparked to life somewhere above him.

As if in slow motion, Steve watched the bullet fly out of the muzzle, catching the light and winking at him. He could smell the gunpowder and smoke in the air, and dust from the goddamned drapes – he should have known they would make too good a hiding place. Should have known—

Something rammed into him with enough force to steal his breath, knocking him back and sending him flying into the air.

And then everything went black.

\---

Steve woke up with the back of his skull pounding dully and the daylight too bright even against his closed eyelids. He groaned, grimacing, and forced his eyes open slowly, blinking against the sun streaming through the window and the white halogen lights over his head.

Three things occurred to him then – the whiteness and the chemical, clinical smell of sterility indicated that he was at the hospital, half-sitting in one of those reclining beds. That was the first one. The second one, was that he felt like shit. If Steve didn’t know any better, he would have assumed that someone had run him over with a truck. And the third one was that he was not alone.

Diana was sitting in the chair next to his bed, her head turned slightly to the side. It took Steve a few moments to focus on her properly. And when he did, he took the chance to study her before she noticed that he was awake, taking in the outline of her profile against the white wall behind her. There was a slight frown creasing her forehead and tired shadows under her eyes, and he wondered absently what it was that had made her lips flatten into that displeased line.

He must have shifted then because Diana turned to him, straightening up in her seat when she found him awake and leaning closer to his bed.

“Hey,” Steve croaked, and then winced when the sound resonated with a dull ache somewhere in the centre of his skull.

“Hi,” Diana whispered, her eyes moving over his face with unmasked concern.

“What happened?” he asked, groggy. “Did I miss everything?”

He remembered some of it, bits and pieces. The concert, at least. The details were a blur, though. Except the gun. The gun still seemed pretty real.

“Afraid so,” Diana replied, offering him a small smile that looked watery and weak and unconvincing. And still, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Even in his sorry state, all Steve wanted to do was look at her.

He let out a breath. “Figures.” He paused. “Did you get him?”

“Her,” Diana corrected him. “And yes, we did.”

His brows pulled together. “Who was it?”

“No one connected to you. Just a--”

“Stranger,” Steve finished for her.

He lifted his hand and ran it over his face, trying to gather his thoughts, but to no avail. He glanced around, and then down at himself, and it was then that he finally noticed that the odd feeling he’d registered earlier was a sling hugging his other arm to his chest. It didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt, not the way he thought it would if--

“Did she shoot me?” he asked, turning to look at Diana again.

“No, she didn’t.” Diana shook her head. “She did try, though.”

His eyes darted pointedly to the sling that intrigued him more than it bothered him. “And… this?”

“That… might have been me, when I pushed you out of the way,” she admitted, looking sheepish, her expression apologetic. “A dislocated shoulder. I’m sorry.”

Steve relaxed against the pillows, slumping back. He felt his lips curve up at the corners, a laugh that seemed neither timely, nor appropriate for the occasion bubbling up in his chest.

“Beats being shot, I suppose,” he said.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Diana offered, watching him.

“I am,” he told her. And he was. But this was also something he was finding a hard time wrapping his mind around. However he had expected this whole story to resolve, this was not it. “It’s just… I guess something like this is to be expected, in my line of work. But… it still sucks.” He shook his head and then swore under his breath, rubbing his eyes.

Diana moved closer, resting her elbows on the mattress near his hip.

“It wasn’t your fault, Steve,” she told him, her voice kind. “What she did and why… all of that is on her, not you.”

“Yeah, well…” He snapped his head up, his eyes flying open. “Is everyone alright? There were people—all those people… and she was armed.”

Why was he only thinking about that now? Christ…

“Everyone’s fine,” Diana assured him immediately. “I promise you, no one got hurt.”

“And you?” he asked, unable not to.

She nodded.

Later, Steve would learn that it was very easy to get a gun into that venue, even with all the police and heightened security and extra precautionary measures, if one simply posed as part of the catering service and slipped said gun into the building a few days before the event. Before they had started combing the crowd and checking everyone for restricted and suspicious items on the night of the show.

Steve would also learn that the damned curtains in the backstage area, secluded and semi-dark, would make for an excellent hiding spot when one wanted to go unnoticed. And maybe even eavesdrop on a conversation or two, while they were at it.

And most importantly, he would learn that twisted, sick jealousy could be one hell of a maddening poison to push someone to become something else. Something barely human. He would learn that his personal psycho stalker whose obsession with him had pushed her into half-madness had tried to shoot Diana first.

But, at this moment, Steve could only be relieved that he had ended up being the only one injured that night. And frankly, a headache from hitting his head when he fell and a dislocated shoulder were hardly worthy of making a big deal out of.

Diana stood up. He watched her pace the room for a minute or two, feeling the nervous energy radiating off her until she paused in front of the window, her back a ramrod. He had questions still, so many questions, but something about her made him swallow them. Made him want to never break the silence that fell between them.

“You’d asked me if there was someone in my life,” Diana started after a few minutes, not looking at him. “There isn’t. But there used to be. Someone I had sworn to keep safe.”

Steve watched her, silently. Her voice was strained, as if she had never spoken these words before, not out loud, and they had to claw their way out of her throat with effort, slicing through her heart as they did so. He wondered if she could hear his heart pounding against his ribs from the four feet away as he waited for her to continue, knowing that the memory wasn’t an easy one for her to go back to.

“But then we got involved, and I lost my focus. And she got hurt because I’d assumed that caring for someone was enough to keep them safe. That nothing bad could happen to people for as long as you hold them close to your heart.” Diana turned to him, a shadow of anguish chasing across her face. “I was wrong.”

Steve’s throat went dry.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“I never meant to hurt you, Steve.”

“I know.”

“But I needed to put that distance between us, after--” Diana sighed and rubbed her forehead as if trying to physically push through whatever was happening in her head. She dropped her hand to hang at her side and met his gaze. “Because I couldn’t do it again.”

He tried to smile, relieved to hear this all, and hurting for her in a way he didn’t know he could.

Later, he would also go back to the images that had flashed before his eyes in the seconds before the explosion of the gunshot had set off the panic – the flurry of a golden rope flickering above the crowd and the glint of a sword he’d hefted once slicing through the air, catching the lights all around them. He would think of grainy images in newspapers and blurry videos on social media of someone deemed a legend. Small things that would put things into perspective once he’d had time to think them over.

Yet, all he could say right then was:

“Well, I suppose hearing this was worth being almost shot.”

He’d meant it as a joke, a way to lighten up the conversation and chase that sorrow off Diana’s face. But his voice cracked a bit with hope and it didn’t quite get there, his words hanging heavily between them instead.

“I just… I sort of thought it meant nothing to you,” he said, dropping his gaze in shame. “That night, everything else.”

“Oh, Steve,” Diana said softly. “No. Of course, it did.”

She stayed where she was, not attempting to come near him again.

For a little while, they simply looked at one another as a heavy sense of foreboding continued to grow in Steve’s stomach. 

“What’s going to happen now?” he asked when the pause began to stretch, growing unbearable.

Diana smiled, although it looked a little too tight around the edges. “You are going on tour. Chief will try to push the dates back, but knowing you, you won’t let him.”

Steve chuckled. “I suppose I won’t.” He glanced at the sling again and then lifted his gaze to hers. “And what about you?”

“I’ll try to keep peace and protect those who can’t protect themselves.”

Her words were simple. An answer he’d expected. But they still resonated with a dull pang of longing somewhere deep inside him. It was an odd feeling to miss someone who was standing right before him to the point of an ache in his bones.

“Quitting show business, huh?” he murmured.

Diana hummed, her smile losing that edge of tension. “I don’t think I have a knack for it.” She moved to him, pausing by his bed. “You hit your head pretty hard. They want to keep you here for a few more hours to make sure you don’t have a concussion, but you should be released later today.”

“Will you be here when that happens?” Steve asked, watching her.

He knew the answer even before he even finished asking his question.

She shook her head. “Sameer will come to get you, we spoke…”

Steve nodded. And then nodded again, looking away.

They stayed silent for a few moments, the voices from the hallway drifting into the room and the sound of cars honking somewhere outside. Life never stopped for anyone, not even when someone needed it to take a pause.

“Thank you,” he said, at last, his eyes finding Diana’s again. “For everything.” He glanced at the sling, his lips curving into a half-smile. “Even for this. That’s… that’s one hell of a story to tell.”

He wanted to say more. Wanted to ask her to stay even if it meant finding another psychopath to make his life significantly inconvenient. Beg her even, if he had to. He was not above that.

Wanted to tell her that he might be in love with her. Probably had been since the first day they met.

But it sounded odd and unwanted and out of place even in his head. While Steve loved the kindness in Diana’s eyes and softness of her smile when she spoke with him, he thought that he would rather have his other shoulder dislocated than see that godawful pity on her face again. She’d be gentle in turning him down, but that was the worst part. After all, he’d given her a chance to admit her own feelings, if she had any, right? And she didn’t take it.

The last thing Steve needed right now was to have her spell it out, thank you very much.

Diana leaned over and brushed a kiss to his cheek, and he inhaled deeply when she did that, trying to bottle that fresh, familiar scent of her, coupled with the warmth of her touch and the sense of belonging that he needed to hold on to for just a little while longer.

“Goodbye, Steve.” She squeezed his hand briefly before she let go of it – too soon for his liking. “Take care of yourself.”

Steve didn’t watch her walk out of his room, choosing to study a gnarly branch outside the window instead. Didn’t want the sight of a closing door to be his last memory of her.

As Diana had said, he was discharged a few hours later. Walking out of his room, Steve found Sameer pacing back and forth in front of the reception counter, a frown on his face. One that lit up like a thousand-watt bulb when he spotted Steve down the hallway.

Sameer flung his arms around him, patting him enthusiastically on the back, and Steve let him, even though it all but sent him right back to the emergency room. It was a nice feeling, he decided, to be cared for.

The house felt oddly quiet when they’d walked in and Sammy closed the door behind them. Earlier, Steve had called both Chief and Etta from the car, promising them that he was fine and there was no need to come over. That all he needed was some rest, and maybe not having to answer any questions yet –  although he didn’t say that last part out loud .

He paused in the hallway, feeling like he hadn’t set his foot there in decades even though it hadn’t even been 24 hours. Everything felt different, somehow. Bigger. Disproportionate.

“She’s not here,” Sammy said softly, watching Steve, and it was only then that Steve realized that he was listening for the sounds of another person’s presence somewhere in the house.

He nodded and headed to his studio before Sameer could try to add anything else. This was not a conversation Steve wanted to have – now, or possibly ever.

Later that night, Steve ended up staring at the tubs of ice-cream in the freezer for a solid fifteen minutes.

He left the kitchen without getting what he had gone there for.

\---

Ten days after Diana walked out of Steve Trevor’s house for the last time, Chief found her at the top of the Custom House clock tower – a spot she often frequented at night, finding peace in the glimmering lights of the city far below. From over 300 feet above the ground, it was easier to see the world as a place full of wonder and endless possibilities. A perspective one often couldn’t glimpse without taking a step back.

Of all the places in Boston, this one was Diana’s favourite. A perfect vantage point and a spot for contemplation. There was something about seeing the city as if in miniature that gave her a better perspective on things when nothing else helped.

How Napi found his way there after hours, she didn’t know and never asked.

For a while, the two of them simply stood on the balcony above the clock, watching the expanse of the sea of lights stretch all the way to the horizon, bleeding into the pitch-black sky. The wind was frigid and fierce, tugging at Diana’s hair and making the tails of Chief’s long coat flap against his calves. If the cold bothered him, he showed no signs of it. As for Diana, she welcomed the freshness of the air that smelled more and more of the coming winter with each passing day. 

“He is leaving in two days,” Chief said after a few minutes of comfortable silence, his gaze following the reds and yellows of car headlights down below.

Diana’s heart gave a tug of yearning in her chest.

“So am I,” she responded. “I’ve stayed around for a long time here, Napi. In this city. Maybe this is the right time to start over.”

She saw him glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “And how many times do you plan to do that?”

“As many as it takes.”

Diana wondered sometimes if it was ever going to end. Leaving one life behind and starting another in a place where no one knew her. And then she wondered if she wanted it to end, so used to that routine that she could barely imagine it gone. As of now, the answer to either of those questions didn’t exist.

“You can’t keep blaming yourself for what happened years ago, Diana,” Chief said, his voice quiet.

She turned to him, the familiar sense of helplessness that came each time she’d thought of that day flooding her chest. “If I don’t blame myself, then who do I blame?”

His eyebrow arched. “Perhaps, the one--”

_ The one who’d done it. _

“It was not their job to protect her,” Diana stopped him. “It was mine.”

He was looking at her sadly, kindly. “It’s not your job to protect everyone.”

“Maybe not everyone,” she agreed, turning to look at the city sprawled at her feet once more. “But who will I be if I don’t try?”

“You live in the world of man.” He was shaking his head. “People are flawed. People make mistakes. Your kind has always assumed that it’s them who should learn from you, but you seldom allow yourselves to learn from them.”

Diana felt her lips curve into a wistful, humourless smile.

“That it’s okay to make mistakes?” she clarified. “I’ve made plenty--”

“That you don’t need to send yourself into exile for each one,” he interjected, shaking his head, his expression gentle. He’d seen things, too, Diana reminded herself. They rarely spoke of them, she knew he valued his privacy, but she was well aware that he hadn’t walked through his long life unmarked. And whatever scars covered his heart, she also knew they ran deep. “That you don’t need to punish yourself.” Chief paused. “Steve is miserable. And so are you.”

“I’m not--” she started to protest but he lifted his hand, and Diana fell silent.

“You are scared of taking that step even though you know that you want to.” His hands curled over the railing running along the balcony. “But you can’t keep running away from yourself forever. You’ve lived long enough to have already learned that.”

“It’s not that simple,” Diana argued.

He flashed a smile at her then, his eyes glinting with wicked humour as if he knew something that she didn’t.

“Then make it so,” he said. “You’re a god, after all.”

Diana sighed.

She ran a hand through her hair, her mind going back to the days when her life in man’s world was a mission and nothing else. She had liked having a purpose then, having a clear vision of what her path was meant to be.

She missed those days sometimes, how uncomplicated her life had been, the black and white view of things that she had long since learned had more colours to them than her eye could see. Those had been  simpler days, easier to focus on in ways Diana yearned for when her heart felt heavy in her chest.

But there was a beauty in complexity, too. In emotions that she had never imagined she could feel, before. In loving and being loved in return, the enormity of it overwhelming, yet she couldn’t help but crave it still. In feeling that she belonged, that she was running among people rather than parallel to everyone else. And there was a price for that. There was a price for everything, but Napi was right – it was up to her to decide whether or not it was worth taking that leap.

“Do you think…” Diana started, turning to her friend, and trailed off when she found the spot beside her empty, the night quiet and still around her, with only the wind tangling in her hair and the stars above her.

She was on her own.

\---

The two weeks following the incident at the show were chaos.

There were statements to make and follow-up questions to answer. As much as Steve had wanted the case to be over, he could not have possibly imagined that it would involve this much paperwork and wasted time. So much so, that half that time he almost wished they’d never caught anyone at all. 

On top of the investigation that seemed to follow Steve day and night, there were tour arrangements to make, the press to dodge, and details regarding his extended absence in town to finalize.

As Diana had predicted, Chief pressed for the tour to be pushed back. As she’d also predicted, Steve refused to budge, adamant not to let what had happened get in the way of his life.

“I need this,” he told Chief one night. “I need to not be defined by that--that crap. And I need to stop thinking about it.”

To stop thinking about Diana, too.

He didn’t say that, but he suspected that he didn’t need to.

Close to the end of those two weeks, Steve was ready and more than willing to barricade himself in his basement for a while. By the time his car rolled onto the tarmac of a small airport outside of Boston and pulled to a stop near the jet, he was beginning to feel like his head was about to explode. The only thing he wanted at that point was to get on that plane and hopefully –  _ please, oh please, oh please _ – finally exhale.

The cold air rushed into the car when he pushed his door open, climbing out a little awkwardly, what with the sling still wrapped around his shoulder and being limited to only one arm for everything for the time being. The driver asked him about the bags and Steve nodded at him, the other man popping the trunk open to unload his luggage. Sammy and Chief must have already been there, Steve figured, checking his watch. His car had got stuck in traffic, but that was the beauty of hiring a private plane for the occasion – he was not likely to miss his flight.

He saw her the moment he looked up, the wind tugging viciously at her hair that was pulled back in a ponytail, her arms folded across her chest.

Diana stood near the stairs leading into the belly of the jet, watching him pause fifteen feet away from her, her eyes narrowed slightly against the ferocious gusts of wind.

Steve, who was in the process of reaching for his phone, paused and lowered his hand to his side. Surely, she couldn’t have been real. Not after—not after everything.

He glanced past her, as if to make sure he’d come to the right place. As if willing Sammy to show up at the top of the stairs and urge Steve to hurry up, and what was his deal with being late? But he didn’t, and Steve looked at Diana again. Watched her straighten up as she waited for him to approach her.

He didn’t even know he was moving, his legs carrying him towards her on their own command until he suddenly found himself standing a couple of feet away from her.

“Hi,” Steve said, cautiously, his words half-swallowed by the wind and carried across the tarmac.

“Hi,” she smiled tentatively. God help him, he missed the sound of her voice. Missed it so badly. He watched her take in the sling before she lifted her gaze to meet his. “How is your shoulder?”

“Should be in the clear in a couple of days, right in time for the first show,” he said, and she nodded. “Did you come to say goodbye?” he blurted out after another moment because if they were going to spend the next half hour engaged in small talk discussing the weather and other unimportant stuff, he might actually implode.

“We already did that,” Diana reminded him. “At the hospital.”

“Right.”

He glanced at his sling too, racking his brain for something else to say. Anything that wouldn’t make him sound like a moron. Two weeks had been a long enough time for him to rehearse just about every conversation they might possibly have in the next hundred years or so. Over that time, he’d repeated every single thing he’d ever wanted to say to Diana a thousand times, finding comfort in knowing that she’d say all the things he wanted to hear back to him, in his mind.

Yet, this was nothing like that. There was no script and no expectations, and Steve’s mind was blank.

“So… What are you doing here?” he asked.

Diana bit her lip. Her eyes moved past his shoulder, and he turned to see a man in a baseball cap with the airport logo pushing the trolley with their luggage to load it into the baggage compartment, his bright-yellow vest fluttering wildly at his sides.

For a few moments, both of them watched him work in silence.

“I was thinking about something,” Diana started finally. 

“Yeah?” Steve tilted his head, trying not to sound as stupidly, ridiculously hopeful as he felt.

He knew he’d failed when Diana’s lips curved into another small smile. She glanced down at the worn concrete at their feet and then lifted her gaze to his.

“And I started to wonder if maybe you’d want someone to look after you while you’re away. In case you run into trouble,” she offered, watching him closely.

Steve wiggled his shoulder. “I thought we’d taken care of that already.”

Her eyes sparked with humour, making his heart all but leap out of his chest. “We did,” she agreed, “but who knows what’s going to happen next? All those new, strange people in all those new, strange places.”

Steve’s mouth went dry momentarily, his gaze dropping to her lips, and it took him a few moments and quite a bit of effort to drag it back up. 

“You—you mean it like…?” he started and faltered.

Diana gave a small nod. “Yes.”

“So, you want to…?”

She pressed her lips around a smile as she watched him fumble for words. “I do.”

He cleared his throat once more. “What happened to saving the world? I’d feel bad for keeping Wonder Woman all to myself.”

She didn’t seem surprised by his revelation, although in the time that had passed since Steve had sort of put two and two together, he’d also come to a conclusion that if she’d meant to keep that part of her life a secret, she never would have taken him to her place. Still, there was a part of him that second-guessed his suspicions.

“I’m sure I’ll figure something out,” she said, turning his doubts into dust.

“Well, it’s a tempting offer,” Steve began, taking a step towards her and trying to keep his voice as nonchalant as he could muster. “But here’s the deal. I’m a new man now. A changed man, you may say. A man who’s been through some things.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Oh.”

“And I’ve sort of promised myself to stay out of trouble from now on,” he added, moving closer to her some more.

“I see,” Diana murmured. 

“And even though you’re making a good point,” he kept on, “the answer is no.”

“No?” she echoed.

“Yeah.” He raked his hand through his hair. “See, I’ve been thinking, too. About what you’ve said, you know. And I think you are right. It can’t work between us.” He paused. “Not the way it was before.”

Two faint lines appeared between Diana’s brows as she watched him, her eyes searching his.

Steve took a breath and tried to stay on track, which was no easy feat when she was right there, offering him everything he’s ever wanted, willingly. Trying to keep his voice matter-of-fact, too, because it was pretty damn hard to fight off that smile threatening to break across his face.

“The whole arrangement, I mean,” he clarified, moving just a little bit closer still, relieved that Diana didn’t step back. “I don’t want you to look at me and see a ghost of someone else.”

“Steve, I don’t…” she started, but he was shaking his head.

“I suppose it’s alright if you do, in that context. But that’s not what I’m trying to say.” Steve huffed, embarrassed and scrambling for words. “What I  _ am _ trying to say is… When you said you couldn’t be with me because it wouldn’t be right for your job, I think you were right.” He lifted his hand and tucked a piece of hair that fell across her cheek behind her ear. God help him, she was so beautiful he couldn’t think straight. “And if you were to come with me… I guess want to make sure that it won’t be about watching my back or protecting me. That it’ll be just you as… you, and us giving it a proper try…”

He trailed off as he watched her lips work into a smile, his heart squeezing fiercely in his chest and then unfurling slowly.

“I would like that,” she said after a moment.

“I swear to God it sounded better in my head,” he muttered, feeling the heat rise up the back of his neck. “Mostly.”

Diana shook her head, trying to stop her smile from stretching out wider, her eyes crinkling at the corners. He missed that, too, Steve thought absently. But then she was looking at him, and it felt like a dream. Like something he’d made up because nothing and no one could be so damn radiant and beautiful and—

And he didn’t want to think of anything anymore. He just wanted to look at her forever.

Look at her. And look at her. And--

Diana’s hands curled into the lapels of his jacket, closing what little space was still left between them and her lips crashed against him, knocking all thoughts out of his mind, leaving him with nothing but the need to hold on to her and never let her go. The suddenness of it surprised Steve, his body going still against hers, and for a brief, confusing moment, he panicked, fearing that she had read it wrong when her grip on him slackened. He surged forward, kissing her back before she’d pulled away, his one good hand cupping over her cheek and tilting her face to his as he tried to anchor himself in this moment.

Her lips parted beneath his, eager and soft, a small sound of appreciation rising in the back of her throat. And Steve kissed her and kissed her the way he’d been wanting to kiss her since the morning when he’d awoken in her bed, alone. The way he wanted to keep kissing her for as long as they both lived. The contrast between the heat of Diana’s mouth and the frigid air around them sent a shiver through his body, his good arm sliding down to wrap around her, her arms and his damned sling still trapped between them. And Steve had to remind himself to breathe, somehow, his head swimming.

If he was dreaming, he hoped he was never going to wake up.

Eventually, Diana leaned away, but he ducked his head towards her, resting his forehead against hers as their breaths puffed out between them in small white clouds. Her eyes were dazed when they found his, and maybe one day he wouldn’t feel this absurdly pleased to be able to inspire that sort of reaction in her, but God help him, today was not it.

He watched her eyes flutter closed for a moment or two before she opened them again, an unsteady chuckle bubbling up in her chest.

“Are you serious about this?” Steve asked quietly, aware even in his delirious state of the hint of fear he could see in her eyes, and hear in the slight tremor in her voice that Diana might not have been aware of, but that he couldn’t not recognize. He swallowed and took a steadying breath. “You and I, we haven’t had that much time together, before. And if you’re going to change your mind in, oh I don’t know, the next 30 seconds--”

“I’m serious, Steve,” she stopped him immediately. He felt her hand slide to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers threading through his hair. “I may not stay the whole time,” she added, “but if I have to leave, I’ll see you here when you come back.”

His face split into a grin so wide it almost hurt.

“Yeah?”

Diana laughed, and even rolled her eyes a little at him for good measure.

“Yes.”

Someone cleared their throat pointedly above them, and when Steve pulled back and looked up, he found Sameer poking his head out of the jet, his expression exasperated.

“Steve, we’re on a schedule here. Can you two  _ please _ finish this on board? Chief and I won’t look, I promise.” Sameer let out a dramatic sigh and disappeared into the aircraft, shaking his head.

Steve turned to Diana. He reached over to brush a piece of hair from her cheek, so drunk on her he could barely think straight.

“What do you say?” he asked, his eyes searching hers. “‘Cause I say we need to get on that plane before they take off without us.”

Diana glanced past him at the jet, listening to the growing rumble of the engine as it came to life, the wind around them picking up some more.

“I suppose we do.”

Steve lifted his hand and touched his thumb to her chin, making her turn her face towards his.

Diana stayed quiet for a few seconds, studying him like she wanted to capture this moment and bottle it and keep it forever.

(He would have paid a fortune to know what she was thinking then, what she was seeing. To be seen through her eyes, Steve thought, the marvel of it…)

“Have to warn you, though…” he added, bowing his head to hers. “Since this is a bit last minute, we’re kinda tight on sleeping arrangements.”

She hummed. “Is that so?”

“Such are the woes of show business,” he responded mock-solemnly, adding a resigned sigh for good measure. 

“Well, if that’s the case, I think Sammy wouldn’t mind if I offer to share his room,” Diana agreed easily, unfazed.

Steve blinked, his face twitching for a second.

She laughed then. And then she leaned forward and kissed him again, her arms winding around his neck. And though they were still on the ground, Steve felt like his heart was soaring all the way into the sky.

  
The end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand this is it :) 
> 
> Thanks again everyone who stayed around long enough to see the ending of this story. I hope you enjoyed it! And thank you for all the love you gave this fic, I appreciate it beyond words. This is the universe I never expected to get attached to as much as I did, so if you have any thoughts, opinions, or just want to yell about Steve and Diana, please feel free to do so! I do love me some incoherent yelling. 
> 
> Feedback is always much appreciated :)
> 
> PS I suppose I should update [A Road Paved In Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508576/chapters/25824168) next, what do you think?


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